


Empire of Miracles

by MarshmallowNerd



Series: Deliver Us From Evil [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Natasha Romanov, Romance, Team as Family, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 117,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarshmallowNerd/pseuds/MarshmallowNerd
Summary: Just as the Avengers team is settling into a new state of normalcy, opportunities arise to expand the ranks of their found family. Bucky and Wanda struggle to keep up with the growing changes as ghosts from the team's past close in, wanting to take advantage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the long-awaited sequel to Season of the Lion and Wolf! This story is a direct continuation to the events of that story, so as much as I tried to provide context within this story, I would highly recommend reading that one first to have a better understanding.
> 
> The usual warnings stand for discussions of mental health and post-traumatic stress, as well as graphic violence and adult situations (and we're getting right to the sexual kind with this chapter!). More specific warnings will be provided at the start of each chapter when relevant. Please enjoy!
> 
> Translations:  
koldun'ya - "witch"  
ya tvoya - "I'm yours"  
volim te (Serbian) - "I love you"  
sestra - "sister"

The sensation of overheating woke Wanda in the morning. There was heat from sunlight striking her face from the window and heat from spending too long under a thick comforter. Still half-asleep, she swung the fluffy material off her body and rolled onto her stomach, hoping to avoid the rays of light that way. However, the action soon left her with a chill, so she stretched her limbs out and begrudgingly surrendered to the notion that she was awake now. 

Pushing herself up a little, she crawled to the very edge of the bed, reaching for her phone on the nightstand. Its clock told her she had managed to get about an hour of additional sleep since James had first woken her that morning to warn her he would be gone for a morning run. She hazily remembered offering to go with him, only to collapse under the weight of sleep again immediately after. She wondered if his amused chuckle and kiss against her temple had been part of her subsequent dream or part of his farewell in reality.

Now, she could sense that he was still out. The usual activity she heard at the surface of his thoughts was wholly missing from her telepathy’s reach. Although, she could hear the stereo downstairs had been turned on, so he hadn’t left her without a comforting white noise for company. The singer’s voice rang out passionately, yet quietly; just loud enough to be heard on the second floor of the three-story house she was currently in. Tony Stark’s house, no less. 

It still didn’t sink in sometimes that the same man she had loathed most in the world a little under two years ago was the same person she now relied on for several aspects of her life. Places to stay, money, food and groceries, guidance as a member of the Avengers’ team. She even grew dependent on him for protection from people who didn’t trust her potential for destruction, like she had done to the Avengers’ previous headquarters. Her own home.

The memory crossed her mind uneasily, stirring the same feelings of guilt and embarrassment it always did. She had only lived at the Avengers’ Facility for a few months, but they had been a crucial few months to her. In that time, she had formed a tighter bond with the team, had met James, and rescued her brother from Hydra after the rest of the world had presumed him dead during the Battle of Sokovia. It was the first place since her parents’ apartment that had stayed constant, that she had actually felt at home in. And it was her own hysterical fit that had partially destroyed it. Now a year had passed, and reconstruction to those damages was only half-complete. She and the rest of the team had relocated to the Avengers’ Tower in the heart of New York City for the time being. The Tower was just as nice as the Facility, but by being in a busy city, it also felt more constricting. More often than not, her suite there prompted unwanted memories of living high up in her parents’ apartment building, which had so suddenly collapsed when she was a child. 

Hence, a brief escape from the Tower felt much needed. It was a rare occurrence for no one on the team to need her for any kind of field training, so James had grabbed her and stole her away while they could get away with it. Granted, it had only taken two days for the other members of the team (mostly Pietro) to start asking for her again. As much as she did love her brother and her teammates, she had already spent months on end staying obediently cooped up in the Tower, avoiding another potential scandal around her powers. James had done much the same, avoiding scandal from his years-worth of war crimes going unaccounted for solely to ensure he and her were able to stay together. She figured that obedience had earned them a few days in peace at one of Tony Stark’s lesser known vacation homes, well away from not only the big city, but from her family as well (in person, at least. She wasn’t so negligent as to ignore their calls). 

The witch rolled onto her back to stretch her limbs, wincing a little at how some of her joints popped. She sat up, briefly smoothing down her unruly hair and sweeping it around to one shoulder before finally getting out of bed. She followed the sounds of the stereo through the hallway and down the first set of hardwood stairs, finding the aged device on its usual perch, an end table by the very base of the staircase. Just as she suspected, there was presently no sign of James. Not that she was worried—he usually took long runs in the mornings, due to the decreased need for sleep and increased amount of energy he had from the serum Hydra gave him. 

Wanda turned the volume on the stereo up so that she could have the white noise as she ventured across the spacious (though still cozy, by Stark’s standards) living room and into the yard beyond the massive sliding glass door. A majority of the backyard was taken up by a pool and surrounding patio space. Wanda’s stride didn’t waver once, even as she reached the edge of the pool. She knew her scarlet would catch her as she stepped over the water, fanning out at her feet and carrying her as easily as if she were still walking on the cement. That ability was one part of her “no more monsters” breakdown last year that she had since embraced.

Once on the other side of the pool, Wanda crossed through the lustrous green expanse of the garden, slipping between two of the large hibiscus plants in the flower bed. Past the flower bed was the peach-colored concrete that fenced in the house. Wanda had to stretch to grip the top of the wall, then brace her feet against its lower half in order to hoist herself up high enough to see over. The wind instantly began whipping at her hair as she held herself there, combing around her with the same intensity it did to the waves of the ocean just a few yards ahead.

A week into her stay here hadn’t lessened the sense of novelty she found in the sight of the sea. She had never been to any beach before, much less one as beautiful and clearly cared for as this, a private one along the coast of Cancún, with ownership split between several billionaires. With most of said billionaires away at their other locations, it made for an undisturbed scene even more picturesque and peaceful than she had envisioned in the past. Miles-worth of pure, unblemished white sand and crystalline blue water. A constant embrace from the sun, its warmth sinking into the skin of her shoulders and legs while she was wearing only her sleep shorts, a tank top, and James’s dog tags. Compared to a lifetime spent in the streets of war-torn Sokovia and in a decrepit Hydra fortress, it truly seemed like an ethereal paradise. 

Tipping her head back, the witch let her eyes slip shut so that she could indulge solely in the warmth and sounds of the beach. Waves crashing against the shore mixed with the tune of the CD stuck inside the aged stereo player from the house. After a while, she could almost imagine the water was intentionally washing against the beach to the beat of the song. 

“_Aquí sólo importa nuestro amor, te quiero… Amor prohibido murmuran por las calles…porque somos de distintas sociedades. Amor prohibido nos dice todo el mundo. El dinero no importa en ti y en mí…ni en el corazón…_” 

Barking dogs suddenly interrupted her sea song. Opening her eyes, she saw the three strays that usually scavenged around their house for food now running along the side of the wall opposite her. They were heading for the front of the estate, where the courtyard was. She grinned fondly when they came scampering back, chasing pieces of food that had been thrown their way. Her fondness was primarily rooted in the voice that barked back at them, urging the strays to calm down through exasperated Russian curses. 

At the sound of the gate to the courtyard creaking open, Wanda hopped down from the concrete fence and hurried back across the yard, this time clearing the pool in just three flares of scarlet. She crossed over to the sliding glass-door and re-entered the house at the same time James was emerging inside from the front door. A large paper bag was nestled precariously in the bend of his artificial arm, resulting in him having to kick the door closed behind him when his free hand narrowly saved the bag from falling over. Then he was striding over to the kitchen to set down whatever he had purchased while out.

Using her scarlet, Wanda twisted the volume dial on the stereo from across the room, effectively lowering the music. “What happened to your run?”

“Turned into a walk,” James answered, slightly distracted as he began unpacking the contents of the paper bag, revealing them to be pieces of food individually wrapped in white paper. “Running’s overrated.” 

Despite his attempt to joke, Wanda’s heart went out to him. Especially as she watched the way his muscles moved beneath the loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirt he wore. He usually had to cover himself to hide his easily recognizable metal arm, which meant he was sometimes at risk of overheating. Out here, that risk was frequent, leading to him pacing himself during his daily runs. That directly conflicted with their entire purpose of allowing him to expel the extra energy he had due to the serum. It was among one of the few drawbacks to staying out here as long as they had. Not that James would ever ask her to leave. He knew how much she enjoyed it out here.

“Besides,” James went on, “I figured I’d pay the folks at _ Pollo Loco _ a visit, since it was about time to restock our pantry anyways.”

Wanda smiled at that. She had been with him when he first found the food stand. She’d sensed the owner could tell they weren’t like other tourists, but hadn’t spoken on it, which she appreciated. 

“Think I got us enough for another day. Maybe also lunch tomorrow, if we skimp on breakfast.”

“Hmm.” Wanda had made her way right behind James, rising onto the balls of her feet to reach around his shoulders and hug him from behind. “I suppose it’s good I’m not hungry, then. At least, not for breakfast.”

“That’s…just awful,” James said in spite of his faint smirk. His disapproval was made even more unconvincing when he shuddered at her fingers edging beneath his shirt, feeling the powerful muscles there flex with every movement he made. “You’re insatiable, lately, you know that?”

Oh, she knew. She blamed it on finally being completely alone with him for the first time all year. For the first time in so long (including the first days of their affair, where she was constantly alternating between being with him and with the Avengers), all of their distractions and responsibilities were far away. In a whole other country, even. She figured they had to take advantage of that while they could. “Are you complaining?”

“_Definitely _ not.”

He paused in his work to let her hands find their way down his left arm, thumbing off the lightweight running glove that hid his metal hand. From there, her touch wandered back to the planes of his stomach beneath his shirt, tracing around and up his back. His shirt became bunched up in the process, and she followed the fabric with her mouth. 

“Love,” he said softly, “I still gotta put the chicken away.”

“It can wait a while.”

“Yeah, a _ little _while.”

His time as the Winter Soldier had made him a phenomenal liar. Yet, no amount of training could help him hide how he felt from her scarlet. She would never read his mind directly, would never betray his privacy that intimately, especially with his long history of Hydra tormenting him that way. But that wasn’t to say she still couldn’t innately pick up the surface of mind activity, and consequently, the barest emotions and sensations. Which meant she could tell just how much her touch and her kisses were actually getting to him, despite his attempts to seem more focused on the groceries. 

James suddenly turned to face her. “You know, if this goes bad, that would be a waste of food.”

“I know.”

“You don’t want that, do you?”

She hummed, feigning careful thought for all of three seconds. “No…”

He leaned away, though made no motion to actually turn back to the half-unpacked groceries. Regardless, she clutched at his shirt, stubbornly pulling him back to stand flush against her and reaffirming her soft, “No.”

He shook his head at that, but made no further effort to protest. In fact, he gave a light chuckle, winding his arms around her waist. She cupped his face in return, urging him to meet her in an overdue morning kiss. His jaw moved, ready to try one last hand at showing her reason, judging from the cautious way the surface of his mind ticked. She quelled whatever the thought was with one last, barely-audible, “_No_.”

* * *

“Yes! _ Yes!_”

James seemed to take her ability to still form coherent thoughts as a challenge. With a slight growl, he pushed her thigh up and over his waist, allowing him to thrust into her at an even deeper angle than before. He wasn’t normally so rough, nor fast and desperate. Yet, another one of the perks to being completely alone in a three-story beach house was that they could be as loud as they wanted. She had noticed that was what James seemed to want to indulge in the most (either that, or it was sheer, repeated coincidence that while on this vacation, he kept finding all the places of her body where she couldn’t help but cry out). 

In a way, she was appreciative of it too. So much of her life, even before knowing her soldier, had been spent silencing herself. From her horror as a child not wanting to provoke the bomb sitting in her demolished home, to her pain during experimentation under Hydra, unallowed to disturb her handlers’ concentration without being punished for it. She was even accustomed to silencing her pleasure, for it was usually had with James in spaces surrounded by other people, such as the inn where they first met and in the Avengers Tower where they had been staying for the past several months. 

She wondered if maybe that was why he enjoyed it. Giving her that additional freedom would definitely fit in with his complex about repaying her for finding him while he was living in hiding. For redirecting him into a life with his friend, Steve, and others like them, able to get him the help he needed after years of imprisonment by Hydra. Giving him a real life again, as he phrased it. She didn’t think he owed her anything for showing him basic kindness, but alas, he seemed to feel indebted just the same.

Well, she was content to ride out his generosity right now. James was kneeling over her, so big and strong and _ right _ where he was meant to be, bracketing her smaller frame with his arms and thrusting roughly into her. She arched into him, her own arms winding around his neck and simply hanging on. His flesh fingers that had been digging into her thigh slid down between her legs, pressing his thumb between her folds, right _ there_, and she arched again with a loud cry. One of her hands found its way into his hair, pulling slightly as the rest of her body stiffened, muscles clenching around him and vision whiting out with how _ good _everything felt. James grunted at the tug to his hair, hot breath fanning out into the join of her neck and shoulder. His hips rocked into her a few more times before stuttering to a stop, tearing a guttural groan from his throat as he was overcome with his own release, the heat of it compounding with the heat from her own inside her. 

Her senses floated for a while. James stayed leaning over her, apparently too boneless to move as well. He pressed a few lazy kisses along her collarbone, over her throat, and one to her mouth, which she returned with an extra spurt of energy she didn’t know she had. Then he was pulling away, pulling out of her and rolling onto his back beside her. They were on the bed sideways, so the quilt had become bunched up beneath them. Wanda shifted to get more comfortable, scooting up a bit so that she could rest her head on James’s outstretched arm. His dog tags that were around her neck fell over her shoulder, and they _ clinked _as they fell against the solid metal.

The surface of the prosthetic was remarkably smoother than his last one; the one she had accidentally damaged during her mental breakdown. Tony had made this newer version out of an invulnerable titanium alloy like the last one, but with the plates larger and sleeker. They had been designed that way so they wouldn’t shift as often whenever James felt agitated. Or came down from a shuddering high, as per the present case. Either the new design was very effective, or his artificial limb was simply growing more accustomed to the sensation. She certainly remembered a time when her scarlet would react similarly, frequently flaring out during the beginning of their affair. 

She had since learned to keep the unnatural energy within her calm, even when her mind was elsewhere (a saving grace for their headboard back at home, which lacked the cracks the one they’d had before had). In fact, she felt more in control of her scarlet overall than she had all throughout last year, and she was grateful for that. Especially considering the severity of what happened when she lost control over them during the “no more monsters” debacle.

The low rumble of James’s voice saved her from dwelling on the disturbing memory anymore. “You’re gonna be the death of me, doll,” he slurred. “S’gonna be a good way to go.”

“Hush.” She rolled over to more properly curl into his side, wrapping an arm protectively around his middle. She knew he was only teasing, but still. “You know I don’t like to hear such things.”

“Yeah, I know.” His flesh fingers came up to trace the length of her arm around him, caressing her skin with a gentleness that was a far cry from the manhandling moments before. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He wasn’t asking to be facetious. His natural strength had been enhanced by Hydra’s serum in attempts to let him match Captain America’s abilities. Sometimes that factored into his actions when he wasn’t even aware of it. 

“No,” she promised. “Never.”

He grunted at that, but didn’t outwardly say anything. His muscles stiffened. She could barely feel it beneath her hand, but her scarlet detected a rather bitter shift in his mood. Propping herself up a little, she looked down at his seemingly impassive face with concern. “What? What’s wrong?”

James shook his head. “Nothing.”

That only worried her more. It wasn’t like him to waste time on weak nothings just to placate her. “James.”

He didn’t react to her stern tone. He was idly staring at the space where their chests were pressed together. At first, she thought he was distracted by how painful it was becoming to have his dog tags mashed between them. But she quickly figured his duress ran deeper than that. At this level, it surely ran with what lurked beneath his tags. Embedded into the skin there, between her breasts, was the coarse silvery ring of her scar from having artificial skin patched over an open bullet wound. She had other scars like it. One from the same bullet’s exit at her back, and one at her thigh. The latter wasn’t much of a concern anymore, having occurred when a forgettable Hydra agent shot at her during a mission to save her brother. The other two, however, were from when the Winter Soldier had been triggered mid-fight and mistook her for a threat.

“How do you look at that and not—”

“Don’t,” Wanda interrupted. “Don’t start that. You torture yourself about it enough as it is.” 

When he looked as if he was going to argue, she scooted up further on his body, running the fingers of her free hand through his hair the way he usually liked. 

“Enough,” she said with finality. Unlike him, she was willing to skirt around uncomfortable matters. Yes, getting shot had hurt. Especially being shot by the Winter Soldier. But despite wearing the same face, Wanda had learned to not always equate him with her James. The Soldier was only a part of James Barnes, a part with most of his humanity shut out, leaving only an instinct to do whatever he had to in order to survive under an abusive hand. James, in contrast, was so much more than that. He made decisions beyond basic self-preservation and obedience. He had things he actively enjoyed doing for himself, and things he didn’t like doing. He looked after others (mostly her and Pietro), actively showed concern for them, cared for them, and sometimes even got annoyed by them. He was a _ good man_. 

Hence, she was unwilling to let him weigh himself down with guilt over what the Soldier had done to her. “It wasn’t you. If anything, I’ve started to worry about you. How has the heat been for you? And you be honest with me.”

Again, James was usually very good about being honest, even about difficult topics. Though whenever the matter concerned his own wellbeing, he tended to stay quiet unless prompted by someone else.

James closed his eyes as if he was tired, leaning into her hand combing through his hair. “I’m alright. Honest. I mean, yeah, sometimes it feels like I’m cooking against the pavement when we go into town, but I’m pacing myself with those trips well enough.” 

Wanda softened at his candor, pressing light kisses along the seam of his metal arm. And maybe she was revelling in a little bit of pride for managing to redirect the conversation, too. 

“We can go home whenever you want,” she reminded. “Pietro says the weather’s already started getting cooler over there.”

His eyes opened at that. “Did you talk to him today?”

“No. Not since the day before yesterday,” she admitted, which seemed to bother him.

So much for redirecting the conversation. She and Pietro had once been inseparable, mentally as well as physically thanks to Wanda’s powers. The Winter Soldier shooting her on the same mission that reunited her with her brother after months of separation had put a rift in that tight-knit relationship, since Pietro was unwilling to forgive James for it happening, and Wanda was convinced it wasn’t entirely his fault (again, she didn’t always consider the Soldier and James to be the same). With time and another forced separation—only a day, but to her, it had felt like another several months given that she spent it as a captive of Hydra—the twins were able to overlook their differences on whether James was truly to blame. Though that didn’t mean Pietro didn’t harbor hard feelings against James for it, still. As a result, Wanda had to temper her and her brother’s connection so that he wouldn’t get so much bleedthrough of her affection for James. 

In all honesty, she actually liked having a little distance from her brother. Their intense closeness had its place when they were on their own, adjusting to their powers for the first time _ and _trying to survive homelessness in Sokovia. Now, with their place among the Avengers, where care and protection was easily accessible, they each had a little more freedom to live independently of the other. 

James, however, didn’t seem to grasp that. He instead carried guilt for causing the initial rift between the twins, and even worried constantly another would appear now that their bond was weaker than it had once been. She could sense every bit of what was undoubtedly that very concern at the surface of his mind right now.

“It’s OK. _ We’re _ OK,” she assured, lowering her hand from his hair to smooth away the frown lines on his face. “I promise. If he truly needs anything, he knows how to contact me. In fact, he’s probably better off not knowing about everything we do. Trust me, it is very unlikely my brother wants to know the details of how we learned to make love on the beach without getting sand in my stockings.”

That succeeded in making her soldier smile. “Well, I do consider that one of my finer skills now.”

“Really?” Wanda cocked her head. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing you have someone with a very specific skill set of their own to work with, isn’t it?”

She raised her hand to hover between them, admittedly showing off a bit as a strand of scarlet materialized an inch away from her palm and promptly wove between her fingers. Another one of the more positive outcomes of that disastrous breakdown last year was her surrendering complete control of herself to the supernatural energy living within her. It had allowed her powers to find a better balance with her own self-will afterward, granting her better control over it.

Evidently, she wasn’t the only one more at ease with her scarlet. James brought up his flesh hand to tangle their fingers together, not once hesitating even as the tendril of scarlet encircling her own wrapped around his wrist, seemingly confident the tiny hex wouldn’t hurt him when its host was perfectly relaxed and content. Sure enough, it merely hovered around their joined hands until the witch willed it to fizzle out. As she did, James gently tugged on the hand tangled with his and pushed her side with his free one. 

“That’s only the beginning of the best with you, doll,” he growled playfully as he hoisted her up, blanketing his body with hers. With both arms wrapped around her waist, he had her essentially trapped against him. He was much stronger than her, and quite bigger, but she was confident she could still knock herself free with her scarlet if she wanted to. 

She didn’t want to.

James hooked a finger over the chain of the dog tags dangling from her neck, pulling her down to capture her mouth with his. They kissed lazily and gently for a moment, Wanda carefully surrendering her full weight onto him. She then lined his throat with more kisses, starting right beneath the edge of thin layer of scruff along his jaw, and ending with a soft nip at his pulse point. He sucked in a breath at that, hands tightening at their place on either side of her. 

“You really are gonna be the death of me,” he said quietly.

“I will, huh? Well, then…” The witch sat up, lightly raking her nails down his chest as she drew backward. “In that case, you should consider yourself lucky. Because I have determined that you, James Buchanan Barnes, are not allowed to die.”

She leaned forward so that they were pressed flush against each other again, still running her nails along the sweat-slicked planes of muscle at his sides. “You are going to stay like this, and be all mine, for as long as I please. Understand?”

His eyes darkened as she continued to run a teasing touch along his body, metal and flesh fingers alike digging a little deeper into her hips. Another, more appealing (and surely unintentional) side effect of the serum Hydra gave him was a quick refractory period. 

“Feel like I should be giving _ you _ this spiel, pretty witch,” he insisted, voice already tight with anticipation. 

She leaned back as he tried to steal another kiss. “I said, do you understand me, Sergeant?” she urged, pressing into his hips with her knees. 

He swallowed thickly, Adam’s apple bobbing. The muscles of his abdomen fluttered between her legs in poorly restrained impatience. In all honesty, she found it wickedly satisfying to have the infamously feared face of the Winter Soldier in the palm of her hand. To be the only one he wanted enough to be that way. And without using her scarlet for it, at that. “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s more like it.” Smirking devilishly, the witch leaned back even more until she was sitting up. She lifted her hips, snaking a hand between their bodies, and intended to see what other orders her dutiful soldier could take.

* * *

Eventually, they did get out of bed. Put their meager collection of groceries away, and ate while they were at it. They went swimming in the pool (well, _ Wanda _swam around while James simply sat on the steps watching her) until it was time to eat something again. They found a bad movie on TV and snuggled together on the couch to make fun of it. And then they were back in bed, Wanda curling up and nodding off almost instantly after James had wrapped around her.

The witch was able to spend some time in peaceful oblivion. Then sensation abruptly swept back over her, thick and foreboding, like the cloud cover before a storm. There was the harsh scrape of linoleum floors sliding against her body. Plain, grimy white walls moving past her on either side. A strain in her wrists as they were pulled over her head, cuffed with an extra chain attached to the one linking them together. 

She tried to sit up, only to be reminded by a forceful pull on her restraints that she was being dragged across the floor by someone behind her. She gave a defiant yank back, lunging forward and pressing her feet against the floor in an effort to stop herself. Her struggle earned her a sharp blow to the ear, the lash familiar as Wolfgang von Strucker’s belt. 

“Enough, _ koldun’ya_,” the Hydra official growled, his voice nearly lost amidst her startled yelp. He held up the coiled leather in an unspoken threat to hit her again. “His health is not your concern.”

Wanda only pulled on her restraints again, managing to get her bound arms in front of her. That jostled her leash free of Strucker’s hold altogether, allowing her to scramble forward. Her gaze landed on the figure slumped against the wall at the very end of the hallway, a figure shrouded in black. The black of his tactical suit, black of the padded uniform forcing him in place, and black of the muzzle fixed over his mouth. 

_ James! _

Her attempt to call out to him aloud was thwarted by another sudden pull on the chain between her cuffs, now at the base of where the longer chain hooked onto them. Strucker continued to drag her along, this time with the addition of a lackey to grab hold of her arm and help bear her weight as he did. Wanda refused to make it easy for them, twisting her body and thrashing her limbs in protest. Internally, she called to her scarlet, willing it to flare freely from her hold. Her power burned in her veins, yet none of it materialised. It was like their first days together, where the enhancements alternated wildly between burning her skin in its desperation to escape and sitting dormant in her blood, as if building up for those other moments. 

The witch struggled for several more frustrating heartbeats, wherein her scarlet still refused to outwardly appear. She could feel the heat of it moving in waves through her system, _ trying _to obey her. Yet, for whatever reason, it wasn’t actually doing anything to lash out at the men distressing its host. 

“Enough!” the Baron barked, completely undaunted by her struggling. “Leave him be.”

“No,” Wanda protested, weakly at first, since a small part of her _ was _ afraid of him. The man held so much power over the experiments done on her and Pietro. He had so much power over what became of them. 

But she was scared for James, too. Scared of what Hydra would do to him when they had other Winter Soldiers—when they had _ her_—to carry out missions in his stead if anything happened to him. At the moment, it looked like the agent restraining him was already letting him suffocate, their arm wrapped around his throat and the muzzle still over his mouth. She could hear his loud attempts to breathe through his nose, even as she was dragged further and further away. Besides that, it didn’t seem like he was making any effort to save himself. He stayed slumped near the wall, piercing blue eyes staring ahead with nothing—_nothing_—in them. As if he’d already accepted his fate.

“No!” she cried, both to Strucker as he continued to pull them apart, and at James for accepting helplessness. Though with her arms bound above her and her scarlet acting mysteriously weaker, she felt equally helpless. 

“_No! _” She couldn’t accept that. She wouldn’t stop fighting. She wasn’t going to let them hurt him. No one here was going to hurt him anymore.

It turned out, he wasn’t the only one she should have been worried about. The floor she had been dragged along suddenly gave way to a shabby leather seat. The agent that had hold of her arm secured a set of metal restraints at the chair’s side to pin her arm and thigh close to her body. Even with the metal bands in place, the agent remained standing over her as the Baron went to her other side. Despite her arm on that side being only somewhat free with the cuffs connecting her wrists, the witch swung it over her chest to try fighting off the nameless agent. Yet, all she could manage were a few pathetic smacks against their chest. Her blood burned hotly with her scarlet’s desire to escape. Or perhaps that heat in her chest was panic; her panic at being rendered so helpless when her soldier needed her. When she needed to protect _ herself_. 

Strucker managed to get ahold of her semi-free arm, pinning it down against the other side of the chair where the restraints could be fastened. Then he dug cold, hard fingers into her thigh, snapping a set of restraints around it as well. 

The witch fought with fresh abandon. However, with her limbs restrained, she accomplished even less than before. Still, she made several more attempts to jerk her body free, to get away from the torture device, and away from the Baron. She knew what he wanted to do. She had seen it the first time she’d found James. Her telepathy had latched onto his thoughts while they were ablaze with upsetting memories. Among those memories was the electroshock procedure that had allowed Hydra to suppress his hold on everything he held dear. Everything he believed in, everything—and everyone—he cared for. Everything that made him _ James Barnes_, so that they could manipulate him to be their asset. If they managed to do the same to her, there was no way he would be able to fight her. There was no way he _ would _ fight her.

She refused to be used against him. She needed to find him, to urge him to find a way out. Maybe if he got out, found her teammates, they would be able to come back for her together. 

It was too late to even think of how to reach out to him. The machinery that hung over the head of the chair slid down to press against the sides of her face. Her body jolted even before the first blow of electricity came. It knew what to expect, had felt it alongside James when she’d seen his memory. It had been so intense, it had knocked her right out of his head. She couldn’t bear that pain again. Couldn’t stand to be used against him in such a spitefully personal way. 

Her scarlet burned. Her limbs couldn’t move. She was trapped, terrified and breathless because of it. She was about to be hurt, and James was going to feel hurt alongside her. 

“Please,” she whimpered at the awfulness of it all. “Make it stop…”

“I’m trying, sweetheart.”

Her restraints curled tighter around her. Crushing her. 

She refused to let them keep her here. She wasn’t going to be used like this! 

“No!” she yelped hoarsely.

“It’s only a bad dream. C’mon, love. Wake up.”

The witch gave a strangled gasp. Her body jerked. And suddenly, Hydra was gone. The grimy walls, the electroshock equipment, Wolfgang von Strucker—all of it gone. She was in a beach house, in bed with moonlight streaming through the window beside her. There was light from her scarlet, too, glowing in the palms of her hands where they were pressed to her midriff. James was with her, unharmed. _ Free. _ He had an arm under her knees and the other around her back, hugging her in a tight ball against his chest. He was the only one restraining her. He was restraining her _ scarlet_, because it wouldn’t lash out if its host was in the way. 

It felt like an eternity before her mind caught up with what she was seeing. Even then, her heart pounded with the same horror she’d felt in the nightmare, making it hard to catch her breath. The longer she sat there in distress, the more brightly her scarlet glowed, as if in warning to the nonexistent threat. It made her wrists ache. Her fear heightened because of it. If it built enough strength, it was possible her scarlet would travel _ through _her and strike James. 

Her body jerked again, this time consciously trying to escape, trying to _ run_, so she could hide from her potential to harm him. James only tightened his grip, clearly thinking she was still asleep. She could feel remorse surge up at the surface of his mind, bursting brightly amidst a wave of resignation. He knew she had to be held down, even though it hurt him to do it to her. Even though it hurt to know as well as he did that it only added to the nightmares she had, yet it was necessary to keep her scarlet contained. 

“James,” she whispered, only to have her voice fail her before she could finish the thought. Her focus was still stuck on her scarlet, on getting it to calm so it wouldn’t hurt him. 

At least he recognized that she was awake now. His grip loosened around her, allowing her some room to stretch her limbs out if she wanted to. Some room to breathe. The scarlet light in her veins finally dimmed as she took a few deep, measured breaths. Once it had faded away completely, she thought it safe enough to cup his jaw with one hand, encouraging him to look at her. 

“I’m sorry, I—” 

“No,” he insisted. “No, don’t be. You didn’t do anythin’ wrong.”

The freshness of the nightmare made that hard to see. This was far from the first time she’d had one while sharing a bed with James, but it _ was _ the first time it had happened in a while. From what she could remember, it had been about a month until tonight. That wasn’t at all long enough to imply she had left her post-traumatic stress behind for good, but it had been long enough to let her pretend it wasn’t a problem at all. 

She didn’t _ want _ it to be a problem anymore. She wanted to be past it. She wanted to be _ normal_. Anything but a threat to the man she loved (or anyone else that happened to be in the same building as her) every time her mind wasn’t at full alert. She was ashamed and frustrated that even after a year of actively trying to heal, she still struggled with nights—with twisted _memories_—this way. It was crushing, those awful feelings. They were almost enough to make her want to curl up and hide. 

James wouldn’t let her hide from him, though. She had learned that a while ago.

“Sweetheart?” She felt the rumble of his voice in his chest against her ear. It was quiet. Calming. “Are you OK? Do you wanna talk about it?”

She didn’t. She didn’t want to upset him with the content of the dream. Or at least, the part of it where she had been dragged back to electroshock treatment with him there, powerless to do anything to save himself (he was always so helpless in that regard in her dreams), let alone her. He already blamed himself enough for not doing more for her when it had happened in reality last year. 

No, she just wanted him. She needed to feel him, her strong and solid and warm reminder of what was now the present. She twisted in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, crossing her ankles against the small of his back. She nuzzled her nose into his bare shoulder, breathing him in. He waited a heartbeat before returning his arms around her, his embrace as secure and true as ever. The metal arm in particular was a relief, with how its cool texture gave a slight jolt to her system that pulled her further away from the hold of sleep and nightmares. The other hand swept in an entrancing motion up and down her spine, the pressure just enough for her to feel it, but not enough she could feel the small callouses of his flesh fingers through the fabric of his shirt on her body. 

What she could feel was the surface of his mind. She could hear the steady, frantic ticking of his thoughts, of his self-doubt and anxiety. The same emotions that were usually there when he struggled to find what he thought were needed in an episode like this. She didn’t have the mental fortitude to assure him that this was enough. _ Having him _ was enough for her.

God, she could never lose him. Her mind swam with more recent memories, of him having to hide in the Avengers’ Tower because so many people wanted to make him answer for his crimes under Hydra. So many people wanted to take him away from her. The team had only agreed to keep his location a secret because of her, for moments like this. Not even Pietro was enough to help sometimes, seldom knowing what to do when the flashbacks involved James. Without James, she would be anchorless. Vulnerable to the unhinged state of mind she’d been in when she destroyed the Avengers’ Facility. 

That thought, the reminder of her capacity of destruction, brought back her fear. She didn’t realize it had made her breath shorten until James tried again to soothe her, his fingertips bracing against her back as if preparing to push them apart. “Wanda, please…talk to me. What did you see? Was it…was it one of mine? Should I go?”

“No!” Given the current nature of her thoughts, that was the last thing she wanted. She hugged him impossibly tighter, her chest aching with it. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t ever leave. Ever.”

“OK. OK, I won’t.” She could hear in both his voice and the surface of his mind that he was rattled. It wasn’t like her to be this clingy immediately after an episode. In fact, she was usually just the opposite, attempting to keep him and anyone else involved at bay. James had already been through so much, and he still suffered for it in a similar manner. How could she put the weight of her demons on him as well?

So, yes, he was sure to know what was particularly awful about this case. That it had to do with him, meaning he was there when the event originally occurred. Meaning, in his mind, he could have prevented it. Prevented _ this_.

Her words of assurance otherwise got lost in her throat. His hand had resumed its trail down her back, and it felt so good, and she was _ so _ tired now that her sense of panic had fully ebbed away, leaving her system positively drained. Her anxieties were erased by James, through his soothing touch and hushed promises that it was alright. She turned her head to rest her cheek on his shoulder, surrendering to the exhaustion that was swiftly sinking its teeth into her blood. It was tempered only by a sense of guilt, of _ wrongness _for welcoming back the promise of sleep when she’d ruined his. When she had the potential to hurt him again, either directly or indirectly, with another nightmare. 

“Easy, love,” he whispered as if in direct response to her train of thought. “S’alright. I’m right here. You can go back to sleep. ”

She didn’t think she could. Not with guilt, and self-fear, and self-consciousness (because surely having her weight slumped over him like this couldn’t be comfortable for him) all huddled deep in her heart still. 

And yet, with the even thrumming of his pulse beneath her ear lulling her, she felt herself drifting away piece by piece.

* * *

When Wanda woke again, the sky outside was a deep indigo, still not yet touched by the morning sun. Despite the lack of light streaming into her face, she rubbed at her eyes with the backs of her fingers, seeking to snuff out any remnants of sleep once she realized she was now lying alone in bed. She sat up, perturbed not to find James anywhere near. It seemed he hadn’t left, though, for there was light coming from the edges of the bathroom door at the end side of the suite. Beyond that was a soft patter of water against the tile of the shower there.

The witch peeled the covers off her body, scooting to the edge of the bed. When she went to stand she found her senses still pretty groggy from sleep, but she was nonetheless undeterred. Without the sun, the outside air became pretty cold, so she cinched the front of James’s shirt tighter around herself as she passed by the window right next to the bathroom door. It wasn’t much help against the chill, but that didn’t matter once she’d carefully nudged the door ajar and slipped past, stepping into the thick air of the next room. Sure enough, James was there, his figure a dark shape on the shower wall.

She stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him. Waiting to see if he would move. He stood under the spray of water with his head lowered and his metal arm pressed against the wall, obscuring what little features of his face could be made from behind the steam-fogged glass. 

A minute passed. Then two. Three.

Wanda’s fingers went to the hem of the shirt she wore, pulling it over her head and dropping it onto the floor in one swift motion. Clad in nothing else but dog tags, she cautiously went to the shower door, slowly letting herself inside. He still didn’t react, but she knew with his enhanced senses he would know she was there. He did straighten a little at first, as if to feign feeling better than he really did. 

Wanda didn’t give him a chance to fully commit to that brave front. She pressed against him from behind, hugging him tightly around his waist. She lined the space between his shoulder blades with kisses, small unspoken promises of _ it’s alright. I know you worry. I’m alright. We’re alright. _

Eventually, her fingertips drifted up his stomach and chest, pausing here and there to feel the way his muscles rippled beneath the touch. Then she reached higher, skimming the surface of his shoulders and down his arms until she found his hands, lacing metal and flesh alike between her fingers. Her thumb swept over the metal plates almost self-consciously, feeling what she had once let her scarlet destroy. She turned her head to rest her cheek against that space between his shoulders, breathing with him. He uttered a heavy sigh, as if he was just then releasing the weight of the world from himself.

The sound confirmed what she had been dreading since he helped wake her from her nightmare. That he had figured out what she’d dreamt, and his guilt over the moment it first took root in her mind in reality had kept him up the rest of the night while she went back to sleep. Her heart ached with that. Ached for him.

Several minutes more passed with them there, locked together under the warm spray of water. The witch could tell from the familiar ticking of the soldier’s thoughts that her touch was effectively centering him, just as his had done for her earlier. It encouraged her onward, reaching for the loofah and soap that had been in the house when they first arrived, and she began to wash him. In a way, it was therapeutic for her, reverting to the automatic motions of taking care of him. Of doing something good for him, the way she did in the first days of their relationship. Back when things were simpler between them, though no less sweet. And she was certain it felt good for him, too, because he ducked down as she came to stand in front of him, allowing her to reach his hair. She carefully worked it free of tangles from the little sleep he had gotten, scrubbing and rinsing it clean as if she could wash this very night, and the distress it had brought, off of him. 

But then he sucked in an unsteady breath, fingers pressing urgently into her hips and head bowing to rest against hers. It brought her to an instant pause, her own hands cradling his face. She tenderly shushed the fresh set of anxious thoughts she heard at the surface of his mind, both sounds nearly lost to the patter of water against the tile around them. 

This was the way it was for them. A balance between shedding their respective burdens and giving a consoling light to each other. It was what she had learned love to be, as well as learned how to accept it. To accept that she needed it in all the same ways she gave it in return, because it was equal parts give and take. They had both realized that much together, through experiences like this. Where simply being there was enough to help the other, because they knew the other loved them, scars and all. 

“It’s not your fault,” she reminded. “None of it. Not what happened to me. And not what happened to _ you_. It wasn’t your fault.” 

She emphasized her point by pulling him down to press a kiss to his cheek. Then another to his forehead, and finally one against his mouth. Perfectly mirroring the moment she had kissed him for the very first time. Hopefully reminding him of that time, when she had been willing to stand by him and offer support however way she could, even though they had only known the barest of things about each other. When the only thing they shared had been a history with the same abusers.

James wound his arms completely around her waist, pulling her flush against him. She could sense some activity return at the surface of his mind, no doubt the ceaseless self-doubt he carried over whether he had actually done enough to save them from their respective experiences under Hydra. But he didn’t speak on it—didn’t even entertain it in his mind for very long, which made the witch equally relieved and proud of him for working past it so well. 

Still, he took a moment more to hold her to him. Feeling her skin against his, accepting what was real and where they were and that the ghosts of the past were gone. She let him take as long as he needed, one hand fixed in his hair and the other wrapped around his back, tracing up and down a section of the prosthetic arm’s seam with a single fingertip. 

It wasn’t until later, when they had left the slick, slippery chamber of the shower did Wanda let him have all of her. She sat on the edge of the bathroom sink and let him inside her, this time making love to her slowly. Restrained, it seemed, from the way his fingers dug a bruising grip into her hips the whole while. She couldn’t fathom why he felt the need to hold back. Especially when she, herself, felt particularly hypersensitive (a common side effect of her nightmares) and impatient. Perhaps it was what remained of his guilt and hurt for her. A form of self-punishment, carefully hidden in drawing out her pleasure without granting himself any. 

She wouldn’t let that stand. She hooked her legs around his hips and crossed her ankles behind him, locking him against her, coaxing him. “_Ya tvoya_,” she breathed, unable to manage much else with her senses wholly lost somewhere in the steam-pressed air and dizzying sensation of him pressing against every part of her, parts that were so sensitive from so much of this in the past few days. _ Take what you need_, she meant. _ I’m here. I’m yours. I promise. _ “_Ya tvoya._”

That seemed to be the encouragement he needed. He began to move faster, harder. In the heat of the room, and with the hardness of the mirror behind her, and the rising light of sunrise behind him it was somehow too much to take and yet everything she needed and _ oh_—

Her end positively stampeded over her. She barely managed to keep a limp hold on James, fingers either knotted in his hair or digging into his flesh shoulder until he was trembling and boneless too. She came back to herself just in time to feel that tension in him finally subside, hard muscles unwinding as he sagged tiredly against the edge of the counter. Even then, she kept him against her, inside her. Close enough to run her fingers through his hair, and kiss his forehead, and feel his heart pounding from within his chest. 

James pulled on the dog tags around her neck in return, bringing her to him for a lasting kiss, holding the small metal in his fist between them. His subtle self-reminder that not only was she with him, but she had promised to be there for the foreseeable future. It was a more recent promise made between them, after Stark’s wedding the previous week. No one else knew yet why James chose to let her have the last physical connection there was to the man he had been before Hydra, but the two of them knew. It was their symbol of devotion to the bond between them. Of what would hopefully be a marriage of their own, if they were ever able to shed their chains of being social outcasts. 

And with that, the soldier and the witch did the only thing that was left to do after a trying night.

They went back to their lives.

James got dressed and left. He had apparently forgone his usual morning run to mill around in the kitchen, presumably in preparation for breakfast. Wanda went through her morning routine at a significantly slower pace. It was hard to tell if her sluggishness was from her body’s interrupted sleep or from the pleasant soreness in her muscles. It was a tad unnerving, but didn’t feel severe enough to get too worked up over. In fact, she had felt much worse when Hydra slipped her a toxin before abducting her last year. And given how she saw the long night as her fault (even though she was willing to acknowledge it couldn’t be helped), she thought it fair to give James some space for a little while. So, she went to a bedroom on the third story that had the only computer she could figure out how to work, and she called her brother. 

At such an early hour of the morning, Wanda was fairly concerned at how quick Pietro was to answer. Although thanks to the use of a video call, she could see nothing seemed to be amiss on his end. 

Pietro, on the other hand, was not as trusting. He hadn’t even fully sat down at the desk in his suite when he answered her call, greeting her with a stiff, “What’s wrong?”

She scoffed, slipping easily into a mask of nonchalance. “Why must something be wrong for me to want to speak with my favorite brother?”

“Well, given where you are—and with who—I didn’t think you would be so cruel as to keep me updated on _ what _you’re doing there.”

That made her smile a little (and remember to sweep her hair over a love bite that was visible on her shoulder thanks to her sleeveless top). “No, you’re safe. I’m just checking in. Making sure you’re still kicking.”

“Somehow, I am,” he said, slumping back in his desk chair with a dramatic sigh. “Even though no one’s come by to refill my bowl or take me on walks.”

“Oh, stop it! You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know. I’m fine, I’m fine.” He leaned back in his chair, rocking it from side-to-side. He looked bored more than anything. “Nothing interesting to report.”

“Then what are you doing up before noon?”

“I wish I knew. All Rogers said was that there was going to be a team meeting this morning. I just ‘_ have _ ’ to be there. You know, I’m starting to notice that despite claiming we’re caught up with field training, he seems adamant to find more excuses to work us like animals. And yes, I do mean _ us_.”

Wanda only shrugged, already well aware her extended vacation here had allowed her responsibilities back home to pile up. Although, she was appreciative to hear Pietro was keeping up with his despite her not being there to encourage him. It had been hard enough for him to adjust to living with the Avengers so that he could stay with her (and because no one else would accept them). It took even longer for him to decide whether or not he actually wanted to commit to being an active member of the team. Mostly because he hadn’t been able to connect with the others the way Wanda had in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Sokovia, for he had been kept hostage by Hydra during that time. 

However, as of late, he had begun to show genuine interest in someday joining the Avengers in their efforts to save others from the same horrors the twins themselves had endured when their parents’ home was bombed. Or when their misguidance led to the creation of the destructive force that was Ultron. And since they were forced to spend so much time holed up in the Tower, Pietro had even managed to catch up with his sister in terms of training for future missions.

“What about Luna?” the witch asked. “How is she handling that kind of workload?”

“She’s not. Well, not lately anyways. We’ve just been doing the same old exercises in the lower floors, so I let her stay behind and take it easy back here. Or at least, _ try _to take it easy.” 

He rolled his chair back to look at the room over his shoulder. At the foot of his bed was a smaller, square bed. The occupant there was watching him with her cotton-white head and ears raised at full attention, as if she could sense they were now talking about her. “Yesterday, I came back to find a whole loaf of bread had been stolen off the counter and massacred while I was away. You know, for being a service dog, I feel like I’m the one providing more support between us.”

He spoke with affection, but that didn’t stop Wanda from feeling legitimately concerned. The purpose of taking in the dog had been so Pietro could have someone besides his sister to help him pace himself. Someone who could be with him at all times. Granted, Luna had been an addition to their lives only a couple of months ago, and was thus still getting used to her job as one particular person’s service animal. But still, Wanda couldn’t shake the sense that it was her duty (and hers alone, as the only one who was able to go directly into his mind) to help her brother maintain normal speeds despite his powers constantly pushing him to move faster, to utilize their full potential like her scarlet used to before her breakdown. 

Though again, they had just begun to start enjoying lives independent of the other. So perhaps it was in her best interest to stay quiet on her doubts for now. Besides, it did make Pietro happy simply to have another close companion around despite their limiting environment, and she couldn’t bring herself to protest against that.

Her brother rolled back into the center of the screen, face falling a bit. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Wanda answered, voice slightly muffled as she dropped her face into her palm. “Just miss you, I think.”

“Yeah? Well, you have been there _ forever_.” He clearly tried to revert back to the playful exasperation of before, but Wanda knew him well enough to read between the lines (even when he wasn’t there in person for her to directly read his mind). He missed her, too. “Is everything still going alright?”

Wanda’s mind instantly went back to her nightmare. To James having to restrain her, and how distressing the episode was for them both. How nothing could be done about it now, least of all by Pietro when he was on another side of the world. 

“We’re fine.”

“Hmm.” He eyed her in a way that suggested he knew she wasn’t telling him everything. “You’re up early, though. Is Barnes trying to get you on a military schedule with him, or what?”

“Is it so hard to believe I wanted to beat the sun on my own?” she retorted, ignoring his usual tone of contempt when referring to James.

“Why would you? Unless you’re mad about getting burned already?”

“I have not yet been sunburned, actually. Just got some new freckles.”

Whatever he was going to say in response was interrupted by a series of chimes from a device elsewhere. In a flash, he disappeared, and in another, he reappeared in front of her, leaving a split of silver in the air between him and the nightstand on the other side of the room. He now had a StarkPhone in hand, which he spared only a quick glance at before tossing it onto the desk by his computer. 

Wanda’s brow furrowed in confusion at his callousness. “You don’t need to get that?”

“It’s just the Cap. I know he’s only gonna ask if I’m coming to the meeting. If it was something that important, he can come and get me in person.”

“No, no, don’t aggravate him,” Wanda scolded, feeling momentarily disturbed by how much she sounded like their mother. “If you need to go, just go.”

His hand went to his chest in a show of mock offense. “And risk not getting to talk to my favorite sister for another week?”

The witch rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. It is not going to be that much longer—”

“Well, if everything there has really been going so smoothly…”

Wanda didn’t rise to the bait. “They have,” she insisted. “It’s just…it’s not the same without everyone else around.”

That was true enough. When Wanda had first started living with the team after the Battle of Sokovia, it had admittedly taken a while for her to get used to the constant presence (including the surface activity of thoughts) of people she and Pietro had spent a significant part of their lives resenting. But now, over a year later, that environment had become her new normal, her new home and family. She truly did miss them as much as she did her actual kin brother.

“Maybe next time we do this,” Wanda mused, “we’ll have the rest of you come with us.”

Pietro scoffed a laugh. “If only the Captain would take a vacation for once. I don’t even think he sleeps. _ And_, he took over all of Stark’s work while Stark was out for _ his _ vacation with the missus, so now apparently we all have to suffer for it. And here, I thought getting to share a bed with someone like Romanoff would—”

Luna suddenly shot to her feet behind him, giving a few cautious barks despite her plumed, slightly curled tail waving good-naturedly over her back. With her snout pointedly facing the door to Pietro’s suite, Wanda could sense what was about to come even before the knocking was heard. At both the knocking and barking, Pietro’s very being seemed to sag with dread. 

Wanda was quick to realize what it all meant. And she couldn’t stop her coy grin. “He came to get you, didn’t he?”

Pietro sighed heavily, raising his hand to presumably exit out of the videocall. “I will speak to you in another week, sister.”

“Give him our best!” she said quickly, before he hung up. “_Volim te_.”

“_Volim te_. Bye, _ sestra_.”

And with that, he was gone. 

Wanda sat idly at the computer for a long while, even though the call was over and the screen went blank. In the silence, she could feel more of the longing she had started feeling for home during the conversation begin to proliferate. Perhaps that was what she was truly meant to take away from the return of her nightmares; that she and James had been at the island house too long, and thus, it was losing its escapist appeal. Reality had come back, and was pushing them to go back home to continue dealing with it in a meaningful way. 

In spite of being labeled by the rest of the world as a witch, Wanda didn’t typically believe in uncanny signs from fate like that. She would have to see what James thought before committing to the notion that they should leave. 

She turned in her chair to stand, only to stand back down at the rush of blood that went to her head. Evidently, her body was still working on catching up to her mind. It was only a fleeting moment of wooziness, brief enough that her scarlet didn’t defensively react to it, so she figured she could dismiss it as nothing. But then it slowly crept back, almost perfectly in step with her as she made her way down the first set of stairs. 

Taken aback and frustrated, she took a detour back to the bedroom she and James had claimed while they were there, crossing over to the bathroom. She had every intention to merely rub some cold water into her face, hoping the shock to her system would reorient herself. Yet, once she was inside the smaller room, its tight walls and obnoxiously bright fluorescents immediately offset something in her stomach. It rolled around inside her for a few moments, and she had to brace herself against the edge of the marble countertop. The nausea didn’t abate any, so she had to push herself through it in order to get the water on, dipping her fingertips into the stream. Once it felt cold enough, she smoothed her now wet hands down either side of her face, then repeated the motion a few times more.

That didn’t help.

Whatever was sitting oddly in the witch’s stomach suddenly lurched up into her throat. She coughed to clear it, hunching directly over the sink. Coughing, and eventually retching into the running water. Her shoulders trembled with it, her throat becoming scratched from the strain. She could feel the heat of her powers moving in her blood to soothe her throat, but otherwise, they were doing nothing to ward off the wave of unpleasantness. 

When it seemed to be over with, Wanda spat the last remnants of bile out of her mouth. Keeping her head low, she cupped her hands under the faucet, gathering water into her palms. As she sucked it into her mouth, she heard a gentle rapping against the door behind her. She didn’t get a chance to answer, instead spitting out the water in her mouth. In the mirror, she could see the door creep open to reveal James. His gaze was sympathetic, but his smirk was amused as he watched her clean up. 

“Still think the chicken could wait?”

Wanda glowered at that, lifting up one hand. Or rather, one finger.

James chuckled. Then he ventured forward, gathering her hair in one hand and shifting it to one side to expose the back of her neck, gently pressing his metal fingers to the skin there. In her vexation with him for joking about this—because only he (and perhaps Steve) could joke about it, given that the stupid super-soldier serum allowed them to endure such matters with even less (if any) palpable symptoms than she would with her scarlet—she wanted to refuse the gesture. However, her attempt to shy away only lasted for a mere half-second, given that she couldn’t deny her flushed skin the relief provided by the cool texture. She even leaned into the palm of his artificial hand like a cat, seeking more of that touch, more of that relief.

“Thank you,” she begrudgingly mumbled, causing him to chuckle in amusement again.

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah.” The witch stepped aside for more breathing room, shutting off the water with one hand and wiping her mouth with the other. “Yes. Just a quick fluke, I think.”

That was an understatement. She still felt nauseous, though it was now mild enough to force down. She leaned against the shower door, which was disappointingly less cool than James’s metal arm, but was comforting enough. “And here, I thought I had to worry about you getting heat stroke.”

James huffed another laugh, though it didn’t carry as much amusement as before. “Yeah, well, that’s not totally off the table just yet. Speaking of which, I got some breakfast together. Although after all that, I’m not sure that sounds too good to you.”

“Maybe later.” 

_ If we’re here later_, she thought to herself. Admittedly, she had only been on the fence about asking to go home before, but now the freshness of discomfort she felt from the moment of sickness made her long for the familiar comfort of their home even more. 

“You know,” James said, “it’s a little ironic. I just checked in with Steve, and he said he was on his way to a meeting with the team about maybe having mandatory medical check-ups.”

“Really? I was just on call with Pietro. He was dreading going to that.”

Something bright crossed his eye as she mentioned finally speaking to her brother. “Yeah?”

“Mh-hmm.” 

She paused, feeling a little self-conscious all of a sudden. She didn’t want to make it seem like she was coming down with something serious and _ needed _to be back home because of it. In hindsight, it did feel a little childish to run home the moment a few slight inconveniences came along. 

But then again, they _ had _ been here for a while. James overheating was still a lingering concern (one she didn’t think was worth pushing their luck on), and she did want to check on her brother in person, so that her scarlet could pick up his mental state. 

“What would you say to the idea of saving him from that meeting?” 

A curious wrinkle formed between James’s brow. “How so?”

“By calling him or Steve back. See if maybe someone there would be willing to come over and pick us up.”

“Oh, yeah?” That brightness returned in his expression, and Wanda couldn’t help but smile a little in fondness. He was even more of a homebody than she was, so it wasn’t surprising to see he had missed being home as much (if not more) than she did. He looked so eager to be back in familiar ground. “You ready to go home? Because—I mean, I’ll be fine if you’re still worried about me—”

“No, no, it’s not that. Well, not _ just _ that. I just think…” She paused, moving some of her hair out of her face to hide the glow of her scarlet as it reacted to her internal struggle to articulate her thoughts. “It feels like a good time. Maybe not right this very minute, but you know, by the time someone from the team actually makes it down here…”

“Yeah. It’ll be a while.” James nodded his understanding. “So, that’s a yes? Let ‘em know we’re ready to head home?”

“I am if you are.”

She heard something tick at the surface of his mind then. A sort of anxiety that came from having such a decision placed on him. It had been two years since he’d broken away from Hydra, and yet, there were still moments where the full range of self-will he now had was difficult to grasp. It made her heart ache, remembering how he suffered so much that the scars to his sense of self affected him to this day.

Fortunately, this particular subject was simple enough for his mind to fuss over it for only a short moment. “Right. I’ll call Steve. Unless you’d rather talk to Pietro.”

Wanda shook her head. “Oh, I know he’s already in trouble for trying to skip this meeting. I’m not going to be his excuse to blow it off even more.”

“Sure,” James said around a small laugh. “And us distracting Steve isn’t the same thing?”

“No,” she said confidently, even though internally she knew he had a point. 

With that, she left him to make the arrangements while she began phasing them out of the house. They didn’t have many material belongings, nor did they really need to bring any when Stark’s vacation homes were already equipped with everything a person could need aside from clothes and groceries, so there wasn’t much of theirs to pack. As she did, James was able to reach the team back home. Apparently, Sam had already been tasked to fly out from the Tower to the Avengers Facility to overlook its reconstruction progress, and he was willing to fly their way instead. With the recent lack of any international Avengers-level threats, the Facility could afford that kind of delay. 

It was late that afternoon when the soldier and the witch actually left Stark’s beach house, heading to the other side of the estate where there was a large enough clearing for aircrafts to land and take off from. They reached the area with perfect timing, having spotted the small SHIELD-issued quinjet first approaching just as Wanda was locking up the house behind them some six acres away. Once both parties reached the landing area, Sam wasted no time lowering the ramp of the quinjet and jogging out to meet them. 

“Hey, the season of the witch is here again!” he exclaimed upon seeing Wanda, arms spread wide to gather her in a friendly embrace when she was close enough. “How you holdin’ up, Sabrina?”

“Very well, thank you,” Wanda returned just as warmly.

“Jeez, Wilson,” James added from beside her. “Why don’t you ever greet me with that much enthusiasm?”

“Hi, Barnes,” Sam said flatly, his face going blank. Wanda couldn’t help but giggle at the exchange, amused despite still not knowing exactly how or when the light rivalry between them started.

James let this particular exchange go with simply an annoyed glare as he slung his duffel over his shoulder. Sam took Wanda’s travel bag for her, resuming an affable disposition for her. Sam filled them in on some of the things that had happened at the Tower (mostly things Wanda had already heard from the comically different perspective of Pietro) as they loaded themselves onto the quinjet, making the already short period of time it took to prepare for take-off seem even briefer. 

“Alright,” Sam huffed once he’d gotten situated in the pilot chair. “We all ready?”

Wanda sat back in her own seat, somehow managing to make herself comfortable despite being filled with excited energy at the prospect of being home soon. “We’re ready.”


	2. Chapter 2

Wanda dozed during the flight home, lulled by the dull thrum of the moving quinjet. Then something within her seemed to sense when they had returned to New York City, for her senses suddenly sprung to alertness. She even rose to her feet, striding over to stand directly behind Sam and look over his shoulder to see the rapidly approaching skyline. In the middle of the afternoon, most citizens were still out in the streets and in their work buildings, going about the busier part of their days. Fortunately, the quinjet was too quick for the witch to pick up the activity of their minds for longer than a few flashes of noise, barely louder than the jet’s engine. Said engine grew quieter whenever Sam slowed down, first when they reached the crowded city area, and again once the Tower was in sight. As they drew closer to the landing strip, a grand translucent door rose up to let their craft into the building.

From her vantage point, Wanda was instantly able to catch sight of a familiar figure strolling through the aerial garage to meet them at the edge of the landing strip, wholly undeterred by how the jet whipped at her blazing red hair during its descent. She was there still when the jet passengers dismounted, a picture of poise and control as always, although at the sight of her teammates, she radiated an aura of relief Wanda could clearly sense through her telepathy. 

“Sergeant,” she greeted, for James was the first one to reach her.

“Natasha,” he returned.

“How was the flight?”

“Terrible,” Sam cut in, clapping a hand against James’s flesh shoulder. “Barnes never came by with my bag of pretzels.”

“Oh, poor baby,” was Nat’s equally jestful reply. “You better get to the kitchen then. We can’t afford to have you wasting away on your next flight, over to the Facility.”

“At this hour in the day? I doubt those grunts left anything but cereal dust.” Sam gently nudged Wanda with his elbow. “What do you think? Can I trust it? Read her mind.”

Wanda nudged him back, lightly pushing him towards the garage exit. “Play nice.”

Sam grumbled something incoherent, feigning a begrudging attitude as he obliged to Natasha’s suggestion. Said spy only smirked at the unconvincing façade, tipping her head after him in a silent indication she was going to follow. Wanda went with her, matching her stride easily, while James trailed a couple of steps behind.

“It is a good thing you came back today,” Natasha told the Maximoff sister. “I don’t know how we would have managed to keep a certain speed-happy bastard entertained if we’d had him all to ourselves another day.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Wanda said. “He’s pretty good at finding trouble on his own. I’m only useful for making sure he doesn’t get caught.”

“Oh, I think you should be worried.” That was said too nonchalantly to reflect sincerity. “When Steve and I went to pick him up for the meeting this morning, I could’ve sworn I saw claw marks on the paneling at the bottom of the wall. Whether it was from the dog or him is a legitimate question.”

Wanda was able to chuckle at that, knowing the way she did that scratching at the wall by the door was indeed an anxious tic of Luna’s whenever Pietro left her home alone. 

“Speaking of which,” Natasha went on, more serious now, “we need to get you up to speed on today’s meeting. The key takeaway is that mandatory medical exams have been agreed upon. Exactly how regular they should be is still up for debate, but everyone’s first one is required soon, if not today. So, that’s one for your to-do list. Also, Tony and Pep got back from Venice a few days ago, so of course he’s already got the prototype for your new field uniform ready for fitting. And, _ of course_, you need to eat something for dinner with the rest of us, because if I don’t at least make that offer, the Mama Hen will never let me hear the end of it.”

“S’that a reference to Steve or Sam?” James asked.

Natasha turned on her heel to face him, effortlessly walking backwards. “Like you don’t know which one of them is more open about his favoritism towards teammates. Tell me again, how was the flight, Sarge?”

“Right. Point taken.”

To Wanda, the spy continued. “Now, for the good news: you get to pick what gets done first.”

Wanda sighed, knowing she was already dreading going to medical. She knew mandatory check-ins had become a topic of interest here recently because of her. She didn’t necessarily have to read Natasha or even Steve’s mind to know that; her growing experience with telepathy in general had taught her several things about figuring out people’s lines of reasoning. And this time last year was when she had thrown the two leaders of the team for a loop when she’d accidentally allowed herself to be poisoned by Hydra, with a toxin made by Wolfgang von Strucker that was strong enough to suppress her powers and nearly shut down her entire body system as a result. The anniversary of such an episode made for a reasonable call for precautions now. 

However, the experiments led by that same Strucker were the very reason she was apprehensive about medical settings to this day. Even though she knew it would only be the bare minimum of examinations, and she knew she was in a place with people she could trust to treat her well, and _ she knew _ it was the most appropriate thing to do when she had been feeling nauseous earlier that day…the idea made her uneasy. She wanted to put it off for as long as she could get away with.

“I suppose since the fitting would take the least amount of time—”

She was interrupted by a rush of air, which was promptly followed by a body wrapping around her and nearly ramming her over. She caught a glimpse of James in her peripheral, bracing himself to steady her if need be. Although there was no need, because Wanda had grown used to her brother greeting her this way after extended periods of absence from each other. 

Having been right next to Wanda, with her back turned no less, Natasha nearly stumbled over from the sheer velocity of Pietro’s speed. “Motherfu—” she growled in her surprise, smacking him on the back. 

Pietro was undeterred by the spy’s wrath, only stepping away from his sister when they could both feel the mental bond between them pulsating with input again. The most prominent emotions and thoughts felt by each twin, now shareable with this close proximity. Their timelines realigned. To the common viewer, they appeared to be exchanging standard greetings in their native tongue, but that was only to fill the silence in the outside world. 

With Wanda’s improved control of her scarlet, the exchange couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds. Just enough time for a new party to catch up to the group, wriggling her way between the twins. Luna pushed her nose into Pietro’s palm the way she had been trained to do, to ensure she had his attention, and model an operable speed for him. Pietro assured her with a few strokes over her head, which Wanda mirrored due to the same urge to calm the dog welling up in her mind through the freshly recharged bond between them. 

“Hi, Luna,” Wanda said aloud, having caught herself getting too absorbed by the mental connection. “How is my lovely niece?”

“Eating up all the attention she’s getting today,” Pietro answered, watching as his sister leaned down and scrunched up the dog’s face to bring Luna close enough to kiss on the head. 

“And no doubt planning how she can sneak more of _ our _food from the common area,” Natasha griped. 

As the spy went on how the twins spoiled Luna to the point of the dog probably believing she was a human herself, Wanda grew distracted by the sudden presence of a new mind. Sure enough, Steve emerged at the door to the aerial garage, a couple of feet from herself and the others. He looked flustered, as if he too had gotten swept up in Pietro’s speed on the way there. The observation in her mind’s eye must have reached Pietro’s end of their bond, for his attention turned to Steve as well. 

Her brother smirked at the Captain’s expense. “Trouble coming up the stairs, old man?”

“You’re hilarious,” Steve retorted. “Just try to run over me one more time, see what happens.”

“Don’t.” Wanda grabbed her brother’s arm to stop him before the temptation to test the Captain’s patience more could even cross his mind. With her free arm, she was able to half-return Steve’s greeting hug. After he had exchanged some pleasantries with her, he stepped between her and Natasha to reach James behind them, who was now taking his turn at tending to Luna (he was as fond of her as the twins were, having a soft spot for dogs in general. It was even his work caring for a stranger’s dogs last year that had helped Wanda, and eventually Pietro through her, to get over a former fear of them). 

Wanda could hear the surface of her soldier’s mind settle more easily as Steve asked him how he was, much like how Pietro’s thoughts had calmed to a more mellow pace once she had repaired the mental bond between them. Rationally, she and James both knew he had no reason to be agitated whenever they were with the team, but it never ceased to happen anyways. He seemed to harbor an unrelenting sense of misplacement among Steve’s other friends. Parts of it stemmed from his dour history with some of them, namely Natasha and Tony. Another part of it came from the fact that despite having dark histories of their own, the other members of the team were actively partaking in missions—atoning, in a sense, for such darkness by bettering the world for others. James, meanwhile, was benched from field work because his mind still wasn’t entirely his own. 

But Steve refused to treat him any differently than he had when they were younger, and that usually helped James to feel more comfortable. At the moment, however, the quiet conversation he was having with Steve was actually making him more uneasy. Wanda didn’t notice she had started slowing her pace to double-check her telepathy was reading the surface of his mind correctly until Natasha’s voice pulled her back to her place between the spy and Pietro.

“So, hence? Fitting first?” Natasha was asking her. “That means the nurse’s station is all yours to keep warm for her, tenderfoot.”

“You mean you two aren’t going with me?” Pietro said in mock surprise. “What if I get lost on my way there?”

Natasha had no sympathy for him. She only quirked an eyebrow with a deadpan, “Wouldn’t that be tragic?”

Pietro replied with an unamused snort. “Fine. I’ll make do by myself. But I’m still leaving it up to you to pick who gets to be babysitter while I’m busy.”

That managed to get a rise out of the esteemed Black Widow. “Oh, no. You had _ better _take that hairy beast to her room before—”

He was already whirling away, zipping around both women before disappearing in a split of silver towards the garage exit. Yet again, Natasha was nearly knocked off her feet from being too close to someone moving at such speeds (Wanda, on the other hand, was used to it, and knew when to brace herself), much to the spy’s frustration.

“That son of a—” she growled, only for the rest of her words to be drowned out by Luna’s barking. 

Wanda ducked down to catch the dog’s collar as Luna tried to rush past her, no doubt a futile attempt to keep up with her master. Luna whined in distress at having her efforts interrupted. Fortunately, Pietro returned within the next few heartbeats, and took over tending to the dog for his sister.

“See, I always come around,” Pietro said smugly. “Eventually.” 

Natasha was not impressed. “Fucking—quick little bastard,” she grumbled, smacking him on the arm.

Pietro only laughed at her expense, reassuring Luna he was alright with more strokes along her pure white head. Looking toward Wanda, he added, “You will be around after this,_ sestra? _”

“Yes. I’ll probably come up for dinner with the team,” she answered.

“Right. Hurry there.” The Maximoff brother reached out to his sister, tapping her shoulder when he felt her hand against his side in return. With that parting gesture, Pietro left for real this time, now at the healthy speed Luna was meant to model for him. 

As Pietro left, Steve and James caught up to where Wanda and Natasha were. “You alright, love?” Steve asked Natasha. Wanda didn’t miss the way he laid his hand on her shoulder as he did, a gesture of comfort and affection Natasha surely would have avoided a year ago, when they were strictly professional partners, and nothing more. Hell, Natasha had been closed off about her deepest set emotions towards anyone back then. But the threat of the Avengers disbanding when they originally couldn’t agree on where to send James had since spooked her into becoming noticeably more open of her feelings for her teammates. 

Now, though, her face was blank as she stared after Pietro. “I’m going to kill him one of these days,” she declared.

“Don’t worry,” Wanda put in. “When he starts getting too full of himself that way, he usually gets punished for it soon enough. It usually involves a wall and a blind eye.”

“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see that,” the spy said with a sigh.

James stepped forward to stand at Wanda’s other side, speaking just lowly enough for the two of them to hear. “I guess I’ll leave you to your hero stuff. I’ll take care of unpacking,” he nodded to the duffel slung over his shoulder and her bag in his hand.

“OK,” Wanda responded, voice equally quiet. “Are you gonna eat something with the rest of the team?”

“Maybe. Think I’ll wait for you first.”

“Alright. See you,” Wanda said weakly, feeling as apprehensive as she always did at the prospect of leaving James alone in a place where he didn’t feel like he belonged.

It was a small consolation that James, himself, didn’t seem nearly as worried as she was over how he would fare while left to his own devices. He only readjusted his grip on her bag in his hand, then kissed the side of her head with a whispered good-bye before strolling ahead. 

Steve waited before going with his friend, still in conversation with Nat. “You want me to make you something? Have it waiting for you in the kitchen?”

“Why? You don’t think I’ve suffered enough today?” 

“Nope. Maybe if you had gotten run over one more time…”

The Captain feigned a flinch as Natasha pressed her fist into his side a few times in the lightest of punches. Then after giving him one, slightly real shove to the arm, she added, “Get out of here, you old fool.”

With a good-natured laugh, he did, jogging ahead of them to finish whatever he had to do. Natasha gave an exaggerated sigh as soon as he left their sight, draping an arm over the witch’s soldiers and leaning some of her weight into her. “Aren’t you so glad to be home, _ koldun’ya? _”

“I am, actually.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, the day’s not over yet. Let’s see if we can change that. Come on,” the spy urged, taking the witch’s hand and pulling her through the threshold into the Tower’s interior.

* * *

“Alright, alright, alright. We are looking at Maximoff, comma, Wanda’s file. Field name alias, Scarlet Witch. Prototype for uniform two-point-oh, design number three. How are we looking?”

As Stark announced what he was no doubt pulling up on one of his computer screens, the witch was just barely getting her second arm in the sleeve of the long maroon coat. “Coming!” she called through the door of the storage closet she had hidden in to change. After gathering her civilian clothes off the floor, she bunched the fabric together and stuck it in a pile atop one of the plastic bins around her, then bustled out of the closet altogether. 

“There we are,” Tony spoke warmly, shifting Natasha’s attention away from whatever she had been telling him at his side. Wanda held her arms out, slowly turning in place as she had come to find was routine for this sort of thing.

“Thoughts?” Tony pressed as Natasha stepped forward for a closer look. “Questions? Comments? Concerns?”

“You added Kevlar in this version?” was Natasha’s first question, her voice and demeanor a far cry from the playful affection of when the three Avengers had first met up in the lab. Now there was only the unflinching practicality of a team leader seeking productivity, and nothing more. 

“Only in the vest,” Tony answered. “Anything else would’ve weighed her down.”

“Mmm.” Natasha put her hands against various parts of said vest, designed to look like an unassuming corset covered by the long leather coat. The spy pressed her fingertips slightly, as if feeling for how thick the material was. Wanda didn’t miss the way something at the surface of the redhead’s mind clicked particularly loudly whenever her eyes landed on the very top of the witch’s vest, which was cut just low enough to see the upper edge of her bullet scar. 

“How’s it feel?” 

“Fine,” the witch said simply. She swung her arms a bit to test her mobility in the snug leather. “Definitely easier to move in than the first few.”

“Yeah? You can breathe OK?”

Wanda could, yet she nonetheless felt the need to inhale deeply in that moment to check. As her chest expanded, she wound up pressing her hand against the top of the vest with a wince. “It’s a little tight right here.”

“Still?” Natasha asked, her incredulous tone making Wanda fret for a moment that she was just imagining things. 

But no. When Wanda inhaled deeply again, she could feel her chest protesting the tight confines at the top of the corset. She knew it made sense for the overall piece to be somewhat snug, so it wouldn’t fall off her frame in the middle of a fight, but this was a legitimate ache in her chest at how it was pressed against the material. She only felt it when she took deep breaths, but that could easily become a problem in an intense situation where she had to get her breathing under control.

Her apprehension must have been evident, for Natasha nodded her assent. She called over her shoulder to Tony, “Make a note for adjustments around the bust. May need to go another size up.”

“Up?” Tony called back for clarification, already typing away at the screen in front of him without waiting for an answer. “What about around the arms? Do we miss the bracers at all?”

“I think I’ll be fine without them.” Wanda was more confident about that. She had started wearing arm bracers after the first time she escaped from Hydra, to better funnel her scarlet into her hands where she could externalize it. Now that she and her powers were more in tune with each other, the most she was worried about was the slight burning that sometimes flared up in her wrists and palms whenever something was amiss with her health, resulting in her scarlet not wanting to leave her. “If the worst comes to it, I can always use those red gloves Pietro got me.”

“You’re sure about that?” Nat pressed.

“Mh-hmm.” 

Despite the self-assured answer, Natasha still surveyed her younger teammate with an intensely thoughtful expression. For a long heartbeat, she didn’t say anything more, instead tapped her fingers against her mouth as her gaze flitted over the witch’s form. Analyzing every detail with the same tireless efficiency Wanda had only seen in the Director of SHIELD the one time she met him in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Sokovia.

When Nat did speak again, it sounded more directed at Tony behind her. “Do you think we overcompensated with the neckline?”

“Quite possibly,” was Tony’s answer. “The last one did have a pretty negative reaction.”

Against her own accord, Wanda’s hand went to her neck as she remembered that last fitting for her uniform. It had been designed with a halter neckline, which had made for a snug—and for her claustrophobic mind, unwelcome—presence around her throat. Her scarlet had reacted in that area as if an actual threat were seizing her throat, adding to the sense of suffocation, and resulting in the witch having a mild panic attack. 

She could feel a shadow of that discomfort returning as she entertained the memory. Her scarlet began warming up each of her wrists, its usual glow hidden by the long sleeves of her leather coat. She could feel her face flush from the heat as it coursed protectively through the rest of her form, compacting in her head like a physical pressure. She looked around for the nearest seat to rest her feet and hopefully get some relief that way. All she could find was an office chair in a corner of the room a few feet away. She willed her scarlet to travel back into her hands, twitching her fingertips to give it further direction towards the item she wanted. 

A few wisps of scarlet appeared around the legs of the chair, smaller and weaker than what Wanda had been intending to use. They only managed to tug the chair a scare few inches forward, which wasn’t even enough to catch Natasha or Tony’s attention. Though to be fair, they weren’t paying much attention to her anyways. Natasha had made her way back to Tony’s side to look at the screen he was using, both of them locked tightly in a quiet conversation as Tony typed something in and Natasha twisted a stylus pen between her fingers. 

Wanda’s scarlet was still moving hotly in her veins, making her light-headed. She decided to forego using it to fetch the chair and instead went into the corner to reach it herself. She flopped into the hard plastic, and her scarlet instantly settled once her weight was off her feet. After she took a few grounding breaths, it cooled into seeming nothingness altogether, making her exhale once more in a sigh of relief. Given her nausea that morning, it had almost felt as though she were going through the same effects of the drug Hydra planted on her last year. 

But that couldn’t be. She had become too careful since then to fall for such a thing again.

Wanda flexed her fingers on either side of herself, bidding her scarlet to only glow at the surface of her skin. Just a slight reassurance that it was still there, still accessible. Of course, that resulted in her blood getting hot again, so she fanned herself with her hands until the ethereal light in her veins subsided.

That apparently got Natasha’s attention. “We doing OK?” she checked, having to lean forward to see where Wanda went given the desks and other computers in the way. 

“Just warm,” Wanda answered dismissively, still fanning herself. “And tired, I think. It’s been a non-stop day, and my powers don’t approve.”

“Is that normal?” Nat wondered, stepping closer to the witch. 

“When I go on too long, yes.”

Natasha didn’t look at all appeased. Her striking green eyes narrowed as if suspicious, the surface of her mind ticking with the same pattern it had when the spy took notice of Wanda’s bullet scar. Again, Wanda couldn’t blame Nat for being uneasy when this was around the same time last year the witch had fallen sick so unexpectedly. For anyone else, it would probably be accepted as something past, but Natasha took such missights to heart. And it didn’t help that Wanda had accidentally gotten her sick, too, at the time.

“Well,” Natasha said with a sigh and a glance over her shoulder at Tony. “I think we’re good here. I might hang back to double-check those measurements, but you can go on ahead with the next to-do. I’m sure your brother is still in medical, wrapping up his eval, if you wanna meet him there before joining the rest of us for food.”

Judging from how faint Pietro’s end of their mental bond was, Wanda could confirm that he was still several stories below, where the medical ward was, as opposed to above where all of the residential floors were. Even though it was the task she was most apprehensive about, it was impossible for Wanda to deny that it _ would _ be a comfort to see her brother (even if for a brief moment) right before she went into the examination. She would ask James to go with her, but there had been some recent additions to the medical staff, and Wanda wanted to wait until long after every one of them had proven trustworthy on their acquiescence to their signed NDAs.

“I suppose I could,” the witch replied noncommittally. Then, with a slightly lighter tone, she added, “That is, if he didn’t get lost on the way there.”

Natasha’s expression fell into the same deadpan face she’d had when Pietro first used that quip. “You mean, you don’t think he knew to follow the sound of perfectly undisturbed nurses?”

Wanda chuckled. Then she took Nat’s hands as they were offered to her, letting the spy help pull her to her feet. “No, but in all seriousness,” the spy said, wrapping an arm around Wanda’s, “you know where to go, right? Helen’s still up to her eyeballs with that nano-tech project, so you’ll have to go to the new girl.”

“I know, yes.” Even if she had forgotten, she figured she could simply follow her bond with Pietro. 

“OK, then. I’m trusting you to actually go.” Natasha let her arm slip from Wanda’s hold so that the witch could let herself back into her impromptu changing room. 

“And trust me,” Tony spoke up from where he was still firmly planted in front of a computer, “you want to keep your word when a master spy is concerned about your health. Especially one that has shady things like lithium-dioxide on hand.”

Wanda was able to only briefly catch a glimpse of the look shared between her two teammates before she shut the closet door behind her, something darkly amused on Natasha’s face and Tony’s own face dropping with dread. “I would know.”

* * *

Wanda was grateful when she was back in her civilian clothes. Most notably when she was wearing James’s dog tags again. They had become something of her new fidget toy for whenever she was anxious, now that she had started wearing them in place of a carnelian necklace Pietro had gotten her. She had a guitar pick necklace from Clint she often wore also, but it wasn’t quite as effective an anchor. The dog tags were engraved with text she could grind her thumbnail against for a more visceral distraction. Even though she had memorized the letters and numbers there long ago, she traced over them again and again now, reciting the information in her mind during her ride in the tight space of the elevator. Her thumb continued its senseless tracing even when she had left the steel box, moving increasingly quick over the raised text as she wandered through the medical ward. 

Of course, the further she travelled towards her destination, the more she could feel the additional comfort of her brother’s presence at the other end of their mental bond. However, something about it felt off. She could feel him, yes, but he wasn’t responding to the concerned thoughts she cast out to him to check if she was going in the right direction. 

It wasn’t until she could physically hear her brother’s voice that she was able to confidently follow him. And when she finally found the room she needed, she discovered what was distracting him, too.

The Avengers team had recently made new additions to their medical staff, due to Helen Cho’s team becoming overworked between covering medical, psychiatric, and technological duties all at once. New teams were hired to specialize in the former two fields, with Helen still at their proverbial head. Although while she was busy with her and Tony’s nano-tech project, the head nurse of the medical unit was in charge of examining the team. She was a pretty young woman, who always wore white and contained her strawberry-blonde hair in a messy braid. Wanda couldn’t always remember her name, but at the moment, she knew it to be Hilda because it was at the very forefront of her brother’s mind. 

Pietro didn’t even notice Wanda had reached the partially opened door to the room, and was now able to see him sitting on a leather-padded bench, shamelessly flirting with the head nurse and _ not _having his health examined.

Despite the witch’s initial disapproval of Pietro distracting both himself and Hilda from their responsibilities, she lingered in place for a while, letting herself stay unnoticed. Her brother had been quite the flirt when the twins were living on their own in Sokovia, and this was the first glimpse she had of that version of himself since joining the Avengers. It was refreshing to see him revitalized, free in the same way he had seemed to be when they weren’t confined to a busy Tower in a crowded city. 

“…I mean, maybe if we got to come back here afterwards, it would be worth it. And I’m not just saying that because you’re the only person aside from the Cap to show concern about my stress management. Although, somehow, you sound more sincere about it.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Hilda said, admittedly making an effort to redirect her attention to whatever paperwork was sitting on the counter behind her. “From what I’ve gathered from him, I think Captain Rogers—_ oh!_”

The nurse startled when she turned, having finally caught sight of Wanda in the doorway. Her cheeks flushed as if she had been caught with something unseemly. “Miss Maximoff.”

“Hi,” Wanda returned, unable to ward off a sense of amusement as she felt Pietro’s end of their mental bond pulsate with irritation at her interruption.

“I’m so sorry," Hilda breathed. "Have you been waiting long?”

“No, not at all. I’m just making sure I found the right office.” 

Internally, the witch cast an additional comment to her twin. _ Thank you for the help. _

He sent an indignant thought back to her. _ I was trying to keep a polite conversation. _

Wanda narrowed her eyes at his choice of words. 

“I can see to you right now. We’ve just about finished up everything here. Just give me a moment, here,” Hilda was saying during the twins’ silent exchange. She hastily stuffed some files into a folder and pushed it aside to sit with a stack of other papers on the far corner of the counter beside her. Then she turned back to address Pietro, this time with the air of professionalism Wanda had been expecting more. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Maximoff. It’s always a pleasure. If you have any concerns, you know my hours. And do you know how to contact me when I’m out?”

“Why the rush to get rid of me?” Pietro asked in place of answering. Though in spite of his objecting tone, he did slide off the room’s central seat and began making his way over to Wanda’s side at the door. He wrapped an arm around his sister, pulling her close. “Whatever you two discuss will be relayed back to me through Wanda, anyways. We don’t keep anything from each other.”

“Well, having me go over her medical information directly in front of you would risk violating rules of patient confidentiality.” Hilda didn’t sound all that legitimately concerned as she spoke on the matter. “I mean, I suppose you are family, and that more or less calls for the same proceedings as your examination. The only thing is, I’ll have to ask your sister some additional questions about things like the regularity of her menstruation, or if there’s any pain during—”

“Have fun with that, _ sestra_,” Pietro interrupted with a hearty pat on Wanda’s shoulder. “I’ll see you at dinner later.”

“Bye, then,” Wanda shot back noncommittally, watching him as he left solely to make sure he was travelling at a safe pace. Upon turning back around, she stepped further into Hilda’s office.

“Yeah,” the nurse muttered, already gathering a new file from her pile on the counter, “that usually squicks ‘em out.”

Wanda couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “Well, if he ever bothers you again, you have my permission to go into greater detail on it to deter him.”

Granted, Pietro truly was more likely than anyone else to inadvertently learn such personal things about his sister due to their mental bond. But since that bond had become weaker in recent time, Wanda could tell he was grateful to now have the option _ not _to know so much if it could be helped. 

“Let’s first see exactly what those details are, shall we?” Hilda suggested with a slight nod towards the padded bench. Wanda obliged the wordless request, hopping up into the spot where Pietro had previously been sitting. Some of her previous apprehensions returned when Hilda went to shut the door, feeding the witch’s irrational fears of being held in the medical ward against her will, like the scientists of Hydra used to keep her. Fortunately, her telepathy was able to counter that with the sounds of Hilda’s mind, relaxed and quiet without any trace of that sadistic curiosity. 

Hilda wasted little more time. In short order, she was flashing lights in Wanda’s eyes and ears, then pressing her fingers against the witch’s skin, occasionally giving a gentle squeeze to her arms or shoulders. She respectfully explained her reasons for every action, saying the squeezes to Wanda’s skin were meant to gauge how her scarlet would react.

“Now, while I’m doing this,” Hilda said as she worked, “are there any abnormalities you’ve noticed that you wanted to ask about? It can be mental or physical. Or social, I suppose, but I don’t know how well I can help with that.”

Wanda was hesitant to bring up her mental health, especially when she was still harboring embarrassment for her moment of regression last night. “Just the usual feelings of overstimulation I get from my powers sometimes. And I started feeling nauseous this morning, after I had some meat that went bad last night.”

“Oh, isn’t that always the worst?” Hilda remarked good-naturedly. “And you just got back from travelling today, didn’t you?”

“Got in a few hours ago. We were away the whole week.”

“That’s fun. Was there any of that nausea during the flight over?”

“Not really. I was able to sleep through most of it.”

“What about your enhancements? How have they been reacting to it?”

“They’re confused,” Wanda admitted honestly. “I had to strain to use them earlier, and then they got hot, like when I first had them.”

That was a topic likely outside of Hilda’s range of experience, but the redhead hummed as if she understood nonetheless. She proceeded to fetch a stethoscope from one of her counter drawers and pressed it to either side of Wanda, asking the witch to breathe deeply when needed. 

“What about your tracking implant?” was the nurse’s next question. “Your brother mentioned you had been scratching it lately.”

The reminder was almost enough to make Wanda reach for her shoulder, where she knew the tracking device was. She was rather self-conscious about it, seeing it as yet another scar Hydra left on her body. “Only sometimes. I think it’s just become a nervous habit.”

Hilda hummed again, this time sounding less convinced. “I think we ought to keep an eye on that. And your enhancements, too. They sound very active right now, and I doubt that’s intentional.”

Indeed, it wasn’t. Wanda was anxious, yes, but she thought she had a strong enough cap on her abilities to keep them sedate in spite of it. The fact that they were still audibly reacting (even if only audible under a stethoscope) when she wasn’t aware of it felt like cause for concern. 

Hilda proceeded like normal. She went back to her open drawer to trade the stethoscope for a palm-sized, V-shaped device. Most likely designed by Tony, if the familiar shade of blue glowing at its inside was any indication. 

“Any change in alcohol intake or exercise levels?” Hilda questioned.

“No.”

“And any change in menstrual patterns?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. They’re still irregular.”

Hilda nodded at that, then held out a hand for Wanda to take. 

“You’re going to feel a quick sting from this,” the nurse warned as she slid the V-shaped tool onto Wanda’s index finger. “It’s just taking a small sample of your blood for testing, to make sure your system and your enhancements are still happy living together.”

Wanda’s final warning was a low whir before something within the metal pocket suddenly pricked her finger, then retracted just as quickly as it came. Hilda promptly removed it from Wanda’s finger, offering a band-aid from her pocket with her free hand. The witch accepted the bandage despite not needing it, for her scarlet was already casting a protective glow around the area, working diligently to seal up the barely-there wound.

“I’m gonna send this in to be read,” Hilda said as she took the device, now filled with a bulb of Wanda’s blood, with her through another door on the opposite side of the room. “It should just take a minute.”

And with that, she left Wanda alone. 

The witch tried to pass the time by taking the deep, measured breaths she usually reserved for unwinding from an anxiety attack. Hopefully, that would get her scarlet to settle down. Although it was hard to tell if her efforts were effective when Wanda hadn’t even noticed her abilities were as active as Hilda had implied. Then when Hilda didn’t return soon enough, she switched her attention to something harmless and mundane. That led to her toying with the band-aid she didn’t need, peeling it apart and rubbing at it until it wasn’t sticky anymore.

The wait stretched on.

Wanda tried to be patient. Tried not to jump to any conclusions as to what was keeping Hilda so long. She even tried convincing herself that it wasn’t that long, but rather her anxious mind distorting her time spent in the medical ward.

But then even more time passed. Wanda could feel it. She could _ see _it, having found a clock hanging on the wall by the main door. ‘A minute’ had turned into nearly thirty. 

She tried to ignore it, again not wanting to give into her anxiety by jumping straight to any worst-case conclusions. For all she knew, Hilda had merely understated the length of standard procedure. In the meantime, Wanda busied herself—and her mind—once again, this time by picking at what remained of the black polish on her nails. 

She was down to a block of nail polish at the center of her thumb when Hilda finally came back, bearing a manila folder in hand. Wanda jumped with the initial surprise of the return, her scarlet burning hotly in her wrists as if bracing to jump out to her defense. 

“Sorry,” Hilda mumbled upon noticing she had startled Wanda. 

The witch immediately sensed something was wrong. Hilda went to return the blood sampling tool to its drawer, seemingly deliberate in keeping her back to Wanda so the other woman couldn’t see her face. Her movements were slower than before, her shoulders tense. Her mind was loud. 

Wanda felt a sudden urge to flee. Her own muscles tensed, as if readying to spring forward.

Hilda turned around with a sharp inhale, clearly forcing an impassive front. “When did your nausea start, again?”

_ Why? _Wanda wanted to ask. She didn’t trust the shift in Hilda’s mood. Not when her last task had been to examine the witch’s blood. Said witch was both itching and dreading to find out how that was linked to the nurse’s question now. 

“Just today,” she replied instead. “A little while after I woke up.”

“And that’s the only thing you’ve noticed that’s felt…off?”

Wanda was unsure how to answer that. In her nervous state, she didn’t even think of the brief episode between her and her scarlet during her uniform fitting. “That I’ve noticed, yes.”

“Because I always run these tests a couple of times for accuracy,” Hilda said, tilting the bend of her arm so that the folder there would tip open for her to look at. “And this time, I even did an extra run to be safe. And so far, each run has come back positive for pregnancy.”

Wanda stared at her. She didn’t believe she had heard right. Given her anxiety, perhaps she hadn’t truly heard the nurse _ at all_. “I’m…but I…but I can’t get—”

“Yes, right, I am aware of your medical history,” Hilda said quickly, pulling a second folder out from the stack of them on the counter behind her. 

“Hydra made sure of it,” Wanda said listlessly, falling deep into her memories of that place. The drug injections, constant burning pain, and a forced sterilization. It was enough to make her self-consciously cross her legs even now. 

“Yes, I understand,” was Hilda’s patient response. “And I…well, I’m not allowed to disclose other patients’ information. But I will say this much: we _ have _seen another case recently of the enhancements in one individual transferring its healing factor into another who had already existing enhancements of their own. We found out about it after we noticed their menstrual periods were starting to stabilize the way they had been before the person endured similar bodily trauma. We believe it was a result of intimate exposure to the second party’s serum, and…”

She released a steadying breath, lowering her voice slightly. “Have you had similar exposure to another enhanced individual?”

_ James. _There was no question. He was the only person she had ever been with. And he did have an enhancing serum. Ironically, it had been given to him by the same organization that had attempted to sterilize her.

Her stunned mind suddenly burst into action, putting the pieces together. The Red Room had attempted to sterilize Natasha. Steve’s serum had healed her. The pair had recently begun pushing the rest of the team to have their physical states evaluated. Had they figured out Wanda would discover similar side effects due to the super-soldier serum in James? The serum in James was weaker than Steve’s… 

But she and James had been together _ longer_.

_ Oh, James_… 

She had been so blind. The more she mulled over the thought now, the more it made sense. How she had gotten dizzy and sick. Why the corset of her uniform felt so uncomfortable. Why her scarlet was behaving oddly— 

Oh, God, her _ scarlet_. How was it reacting to this? To a pregnant host?

_ I’m pregnant. _

“…your own enhancements must have suppressed the symptoms until now,” Hilda was saying when Wanda tuned her voice back in. “I can understand if that makes all of this even more, um…unexpected. I can give you a moment alone if you need it to process—”

“No, I’m…” Wanda began, simply to appease the other woman. Then it occurred to her exactly what was being offered. “Yes, can I have a moment, please?”

“Sure. I will just…” Hilda floundered for an excuse, clearly caught off-guard just as much as Wanda was. “I’ll step out,” was what she settled on. “We can finish this whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you.”

Hilda didn’t waste any time, scurrying back towards the back room where she had just come. Wanda watched her go like a coiled spring. Her tense muscles jumped forward the very moment the door closed, going straight to the opposite door and pushing her through without a single care that her examination wasn’t technically over. She encountered some other members of the medical staff along her path this time, accidentally knocking herself into a couple of them in her rush to leave. She didn’t slow down, too afraid one of them would stop her and force her back towards Hilda’s office. Which, in hindsight, was ridiculous. No one else knew she was supposed to be there besides the other Avengers. 

She didn’t think of that in the moment. She wasn’t thinking at all. Not past what she had just been told. _ Each run came back positive for pregnancy. _

_ I’m pregnant. _

Her mind didn’t catch up with her until she was back in the elevator. Even then, there was a strange disconnect between her and her body. In a way, it saved her from the usual discomfort she had with the tight space, keeping her at a safe mental distance from it as she instructed the elevator to take her to her suite by a force of habit alone. It was a slight relief once she actually arrived there, but only slight. 

James wasn’t in their suite. She couldn’t detect the surface of his mind. She didn’t see or hear him anywhere. She saw their travel bags on the bed when she wandered into their room, both duffels opened and still half-full with their belongings. A part of her thought to be concerned about what had pulled him away, even tempting her to ask Tony’s omnipresent AI, Jarvis (whose presence throughout the building she still found rather unsettling) where he had gone. But a stronger part still idled in relief. She had more time to just herself, to process what this meant. To protect James from having to know, from having to feel the way she did now. 

Even though no one else was in their suite, the witch felt a sudden surge of vulnerability. She went to the bedroom’s en suite bathroom to hide. Maybe even splash some water on her face, to jolt her system, to center herself. Or maybe to throw up again.

Once in the bathroom, she closed the door behind her and simply froze. It was like the mirror across from her had become a window into herself, to the full brunt of her feelings in the wake of the news. 

She was pregnant.

Everything surged up within her like a tidal wave. Her doubt and worry. Her frustration at herself for not sensing it sooner. Her embarrassment at being so caught off-guard about something so personal in front of someone else. Her awe that this was even possible for her. Her _ fear _of what it meant, of what it would bring. She bowed under the pressure of it all, sliding against the door at her back and flopping onto the floor, free from view of herself in the mirror. 

Positive for pregnancy. Three tests showed she was positive for pregnancy. 

She didn’t know what else she should have been expecting. James was very physical about his affections for her. He sometimes even relied on his actions to convey his feelings after Hydra tortured his mind to a point where he couldn’t always articulate his thoughts about himself. She was much the same way with him, having been accustomed to physical affection from her family. _ Surely _ she should have thought something would come out of that. Especially when they had both been so lax about protection. Back when she had thought the damage Hydra did to her body was _ permanent_. 

How could she have been so foolish? 

She gasped a shocked, shaky sound. She pressed her face into her hands and ran her fingers through her hair. She was not going to let herself cry about this. She just wasn’t. It was too late to be worried about what she had done. The only thing left to wonder was what was she _ going _to do. 

The answer to that should have been easy. Maybe in another time, in another place, it would be. If she were only a normal, ordinary woman living far from the dangers that came with a life of enhanced soldiers, and lethal spies, and their terrorist adversaries. If her body hadn’t been a subject of science experiments and hadn’t been…_mutated _into a vessel for an unnatural energy. She still didn’t have a single clue as to how her scarlet would react to this. Would it reject the foreign presence? Would it accept it as part of its host? What if it transferred itself into the baby, making them its new host?

The baby. She was pregnant with their baby. 

God, she didn’t know what she was going to do. She didn’t know what she _ could _do, given all the unknowns about her body. Her damn enhancements, given to her from her own damned choice to be experimented on—to blindly trust the first person who promised to make her physically stronger so she could help her homeland (a land that had now ostracized her, no less). At least James was only enhanced because it had been forced on him.

And, oh, James. She didn’t need to ask herself what he would think. She knew him well enough to know already. Granted, she couldn’t speak on what he would _ want_. This wasn’t a subject that had ever before come up between them. They had just recently begun discussing their future together, and even then, it had been strictly limited to the topic of marriage. She didn’t know if he would want this. 

In a way, it didn’t matter. James rarely acted on what he wanted, but rather on what he thought was best for the situation. Some days she could sense he was still struggling with the idea of merely being with her. He saw himself as a problem for her; if not now, for his issues in coping with decades-worth of post-traumatic stress, then a problem that would manifest later, when his status as an international fugitive caught up with him. It was the most common point of contention between them, with her able to argue that she posed similar problems for him to deal with. Adding this, another presence to that mix…what if it was too much for him? What if it was enough to scare him away?

It was a cruel thing to make herself think of. She had spent so much time over the past year being afraid of all the external factors that tried to pull them apart. From leftover members of Hydra seeking to reclaim former assets to restore Hydra to its former power, to political officials who thought James should publicly atone for the things he had done as the Winter Soldier, to even some of the Avengers’ allies in SHIELD who unknowingly agreed with James that his baggage wasn’t worth their time and efforts. That he should be cast out, left to find his way on his own. She never fathomed that something in between them could become a threat. 

She couldn’t fathom what she would do if she lost him. Or worse, made him want to stay with her only because of a feeling of obligation.

She couldn’t bear that. She wouldn’t be able to shake off a sense that she had become just another captor for him. 

She couldn’t do this. Not now. Maybe not ever, given who they were. Given _ what _ they were. Failed Hydra experiments. Inactive members of a superhero team. _ Hot messes_.

She raked her fingers through her hair, digging her nails into her skull as if to pull herself from the churning sea her thoughts had become. It was like she was drowning in them, in the same waves of doubt and fear and questions, over and over again with no sense of time or direction. 

Some time must have passed as she sat there, uselessly drowning. She only knew because her legs were beginning to tingle in protest to being scrunched up against the floor for however long it had been. She would have to get up soon. She would have to pick herself up in every form, to deal with this, to figure out what she was going to do. What she _ and _James were going to do.

She was so scared to tell him. To let _ anyone _know for that matter. 

But she couldn’t _ not _tell James. She couldn’t—

The door to the foyer between the suite and the elevator clapped open and closed. She startled at the sound, accidentally rattling the door she had been sitting against.

“Wanda?” 

_ James. _

Of course he heard the bathroom door. Him and his damned enhanced hearing, from the damn super-soldier serum in his system, and its _ damn healing factor_.

“Sweetheart? Are you here?”

No, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t face him. Not yet. 

The witch scrambled to her feet, accidentally kicking the door in the process and causing it to rattle again. She rushed forward in a panic, her main goal being to get far from the slab of wood. The surface of James’s mind was becoming increasingly audible to her telepathy’s ear, meaning he was coming physically closer. 

Despite the door in between them, Wanda forced herself to appear busy, turning on the sink and splashing some water on her face the way she had originally intended to do. “I’ll be right out,” she called, hoping the hand towel pressed to her face hid the slight tremble of her voice. 

“OK,” James replied. It sounded like he was right outside the door now. “I, um…I’ll be here whenever you’re done. I…I have to talk to you about something.”

He sounded just as uncertain as Wanda felt.

The witch’s stomach twisted in fear. For a brief, heated moment she was convinced he already knew what she had just learned herself. 

But that was absurd. So far, only she and Hilda knew, and between the witch and James, _ she _was the one who had telepathic abilities. He had to be referring to something else. Something that was most likely nothing. At least, nothing compared to what she had to tell him.

Wanda shut off the water in the sink, only to have the subsequent silence in the room become filled in with her heart beating in her ears. Her scarlet began heating up in her veins in response to her heartbeat picking up, prompting her to grip the edges of the sink as if to subconsciously remind her powers (and herself) to get a proverbial grip on themselves. 

She had to tell him. If nothing else, it would make his reaction one less unknown. 

That thought was enough to finally coax her out of the bathroom. However, her resolve shrank back into nothingness the moment she actually saw James in the next room. Granted, he didn’t notice her as his back was turned to finish unpacking their bags, stuffing the emptied duffels onto the shelf in their closet. 

Wanda grit her teeth against what was about to come. She stepped forward without a sound, sitting on the corner of the bed with her hands braced against her thighs. She dug her fingertips into her skin there, discouraging her scarlet from acting up again. 

With her back to James, she knew he had noticed her and her fidgeting only when she heard the shift in the surface of his mind. His thoughts became louder with his concern, but ticked slowly with his attempt to reign in any full-on anxiety.

“Sweetheart?” he probed gently. “Are you OK?”

The bed dipped beneath his weight as he sat beside her. Wanda didn’t answer for a long moment, instead swallowing harshly and rubbing her palms against her legs. In her peripheral, she saw the glint of James’s metal hand reaching for her, palm up in invitation and plates shining despite the only source of light in the room coming from behind the curtains drawn against the window.

Wanda didn’t take the offer. She didn’t trust her own hand not to shake and further betray how rattled she was. She merely dug her fingers into her thighs again, pretending not to have noticed the gesture.

“_Koldun’ya_,” James said when she didn’t respond to him after a while. The use of a nickname was clearly his own attempt to hide his growing anxiety with her demeanor and how radically her mood had changed from when he last saw her. But she could hear his unease nonetheless, making the surface of his mind louder and louder. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

This time he didn’t wait for a response. “You weren’t at dinner. Were you in medical? Did they say something’s…?” 

Now Wanda did take his hand, pressing it between hers in comfort, though still making a point to not look directly at him. “No. No, it’s…”

_ It’s what? _It certainly wasn’t nothing. And he never bought that excuse anyways.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you. I just, um…”

He didn’t say anything as she paused, yet that anticipatory silence from him was prompt enough for her to push herself to go on. She could hear him pushing himself too, urging himself to be patient and not jump to assumptions. Just like she had done back in Hilda’s office, right before…

“Did Steve tell you—?” 

“You know that I love you.” In her rush to get _ something _out, it barely registered in the her mind that James had begun to speak at the same time. “Right? And you know that… that you’re the only man I ever thought about…that I wanted…” 

She gripped his dog tags, still hanging around her neck. “The only one that reminded me that I was still me, and that it was OK to be me, even after what was done to me in the experiments. And I couldn’t have asked for anyone better—and I know you don’t know how good you are, but I…you’re so important to me. I don’t know what I would do without this…just _this, _in my life. I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t want you to resent me either.”

She had only succeeded in scaring him more. She could hear it. She could feel it, in the way his fingers tightened around hers. His free hand came to sit atop their joined ones, curling those fingers around hers in urgency, too. “Doll…where is this coming from?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, even though she didn’t know what she was apologizing for. For worrying him? For taking so long to get to her point? For getting pregnant? 

Another apology spilled out of her, partially cut-off as she caught herself. She squeezed her eyes shut, silently willing her thoughts to calm enough to just _ tell him_.

“Easy, sweetheart. It’s OK. Just talk to me,” James pressed gently. She could feel his flesh hand leave hers and tuck some of her hair behind her ear, fingers trailing down her jaw to not-so-subtly encourage her to face him. She did, peeling her eyes open to see his for the first time since he arrived. They were just as bright and true and beautiful as ever, but at the moment were also tempered by immense concern for her. All of her previous inhibitions instantly fell away at the sight. 

“I’m…I’m pregnant, James.”

The activity in his mind stuttered to a stop. His face went slack, flesh hand falling away from her face as he leaned back a little. “You mean…but I thought you said—” 

“I _ thought _I couldn’t,” she finished for him. 

God, she couldn’t do this. She could detect confusion from him, but nothing else. The surface of his mind was moving too slowly, and it nearly drove her mad to not have an idea of what he was feeling. Was he upset? Did he…did he think she had done this to trap him? 

Her fears welled up, nearly drowning her again. They manifested into a lump in her throat. 

_ Get a grip! _she mentally chided herself.

“I thought…I don’t know. I didn’t…I didn’t think anything was off. But then I went to get my physical done, and they did a blood test to check on something with my enhancements, and they found…Hilda thinks it’s something to do with both of our enhancements. They…well, I don’t know what it is. Something from how they mixed together made me—made _ this _possible.”

James didn’t seem to process that. His gaze went blank. His entire form became sluggish as he recoiled, peeling himself off the bed to stand up.

“James…” the witch pleaded, wanting more than anything for him to react _ somehow_. “I promise, if I had known this was possible, I would have said something. I _ promise_. But I was always told…I guess no one at Hydra ever thought I would…”

They never thought she would have a relationship with the Winter Soldier. They likely didn’t count on either of their assets finding freedom, let alone each other.

“James, _ please_.” His silence was unbearable. “Please…I want to know what you’re thinking.”

Not even that was enough to prompt so much as a word out of him. In any other case, she would be grateful that he trusted her to not actually read his thoughts for herself without his permission. But now, a part of her wanted him to get defensive because at least it would be something. All he was doing at the moment was wringing his fingers, flesh digits picking at the plates of metal ones as his eyes watched the floor. 

At long last, his gaze darted back up to her, and his lips parted with the beginnings of something. “You’re pregnant?”

Wanda voice suddenly dried up in her throat. “Yes,” she said timidly.

His mind began frantically ticking again, yet his face was fixed in a state of incomprehension. “Did you…is this something you wanted?”

The question took her aback. Again, James wasn’t one to dwell on wants. Given who they were, and how they lived, desires were a luxury they could only indulge in sparingly. 

“I never thought about it,” the witch admitted softly. “I didn’t think it was possible, so I never bothered.”

That wasn’t entirely true. There were moments when she was visiting with Clint and his family that had gotten her thinking. She enjoyed spending time with the Barton children—had found their naivety and wonder towards her powers to be cathartic to her aching heart when she was staying at their farm in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Sokovia. She discovered she liked children, in general. But even then, there was an underlying concern that it just couldn’t be for her, for various reasons. Her unreliable relationship with her powers, her fragile place among the Avengers in a country that didn’t want her. Her past mistakes—the ones made when she was blindly following Baron von Strucker, and then Ultron, and then her failure to spare Sokovia from the latter’s destruction—were sure to catch up with her in some karmic fashion.

It was a want she couldn’t afford. 

“I didn’t think about it,” she heard herself repeat. “I already have what I need, and that’s you and Pietro.”

“But do you _ want _this?” James demanded urgently. “Now that it is possible? Now that it…?”

_ Now that it’s happening. _That unfinished end to his thought hung in the air between them, unsaid, but no less heavy on their shoulders. 

“I don’t know.” The words escaped her as a breathy, scared whisper. He still hadn’t told her what _he _was feeling in all of this, and that made her uneasy. “I just found out, and it’s all been so… so unexpected.” She borrowed the word from Hilda. “I’m still not sure I…if I can…”

She shook her head, running her hands over her face with a frustrated huff at herself. “I don’t know, James. I just needed you to know. I just need _ you_. What _ you _ want—”

She stopped at the sudden, shrill chime that sounded from his pants’ pocket. James grit his teeth in irritation as he reached for the device. It was the StarkPhone he only ever used to communicate with members of the team and Jarvis (the latter was otherwise muted in their suite because Wanda was so unnerved by the formless voice). James didn’t seem to spare the message he had received an actual read at first, and instead thumbed at it simply to get it quiet. 

“I can’t…” he started to say under his breath. Whether it was in reference to answering her or whoever had messaged him, Wanda couldn’t tell. 

Then it occurred to her: he’d had something he needed to talk to her about, too. Something he had been apprehensive to admit. Something that, apparently, Steve knew and wasn’t supposed to have told her about yet.

“What is it?” she asked tentatively.

James only scowled at his phone screen. “Mission,” he eventually explained. “Steve wants me to go. I was gonna try to get out of it, but then…”

He didn’t finish.

Wanda shrank in on herself a little. That felt like a conversation they should have had before this one. Asking James to partake in a mission meant it was Hydra-related. It meant the Avengers needed intel only he had on the organization, and that it was low-stakes enough that Steve felt his friend’s still healing mind could handle it. That was what the team had agreed upon when they were figuring out whether James was to be considered an official, active member of the team. And if this mission was low-stakes, that meant he was sure to return home to her within a day’s period (maybe two, if they had to go particularly far). They could have talked about her news then, and there would have even been additional time for her to figure out for herself what she wanted to come out of all of this before putting the question on him as well, leaving only one of them to drown with the initial shock of it all.

James hastily shoved the phone back into his pocket, his expression softening into a halfway point between irritability at the interruption and his previous uncertainty about how to face Wanda in light of finding out she was pregnant. “I don’t have to go. I can tell him to—”

“No, no.” Wanda surprised herself with that response. “If Steve’s asking you to, it must be for good reason.”

“You think so?” James wondered fretfully. “Are you sure?”

Wanda nodded, tucking her legs to her chest. “Yeah. It must be important.”

James only stared at her, his mind alight with thoughts that seemed to be in direct conflict with each other. 

“It’s alright,” Wanda promised. “We’ll just, um…we can think about this more until it’s done, and then…come back here.” Granted, she didn’t want him to go into a mission when his mind was surely going to be distracted, but that was undoubtedly a moot point now, either way. 

James still seemed torn. It was like part of him wanted to stay, to ensure she was truly alright enough to be without him for a day or two, and another part wanted to leave for his own sake. She could easily understand the latter sense, having remembered her own need to be by herself to process the situation, and her feelings about it, and to just _ breathe_. To an extent, she still needed that herself.

“It’s alright,” Wanda said again. “I’ll be here when you get back. I’ll be right here.”

James merely stared some more. Although the sounds of his mind began to even out, becoming similar to the anxiety-riddled resignation he’d felt when he had to restrain her during her nightmare the previous night.

“OK…” he relented after a few heartbeats, albeit still sounding uncertain. “I’ll, uh…I’ll go, then.”

“OK.” Wanda nodded her acknowledgement, unable to ward off a few nerves as she watched him inch towards the door. She belatedly realized she was also torn on the matter, caught between giving James his space now and seeing him off as he actually left the Tower for the mission, despite the awkwardness there would be with their unfinished talk looming over them. Even though she trusted Steve to only ask James to break his confinement to the Tower for an important, but still low-stakes mission, the general idea of James going on any sort of mission made her unsettled. There was always some level of unpredictability to these things, and she didn’t want to just send him off like this if something unexpected (well, something _ else_) did happen to him while he was gone. She had learned to be cautious ever since nearly losing her brother during the Battle of Sokovia.

In the end, Wanda let him go without following. She simply watched him leave the room with a final reminder of, “I love you, James.”

“Love you,” he returned, though it was painfully flat. Like he was still too shaken to really think it, to mean it. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder to direct it towards her.

Wanda tried not to read too deeply into it. She figured he was still reeling, same as her. She hugged her knees even closer to her chest, and merely waited to hear the main door to their suite shut behind him, leaving her with an empty home to echo the empty good-bye. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
Vse horosho - "It's alright"

True to her word, Wanda stayed in her and James’s suite after he left for his mission. She intended to be there until he returned. Although, that had less to do with the sake of his peace of mind, and more to do with hers. She still wasn’t ready to face other people just yet. She didn’t trust she would get a hold of herself well enough to pass off as fine until she was more ready to tell the team. And, while she was being totally honest with herself, she had to acknowledge she still felt rather sick, too.

She went to bed early. That isn’t to say she went to sleep early, but rather she had moved into the comfort of her and James’s bed to ride out her thoughts at an early hour of the night. She didn’t actually fall asleep until later, hugging James’s pillow to her chest as if it were actually him (it was certainly firm enough to pass for a person). With how his scent was embedded into the cool cotton material, and how her worries for how he was faring on the mission were the last thoughts she had before drifting off, it was no surprise that she wound up dreaming of him. 

The dream was thankfully tame compared to her nightmare the previous night, taking her back to a more pleasant time of her life. She recognized the sickly sweet pastel colors and excessively plushy bed of the Bluebell Inn, the place where she and James had first found each other. He was lying in bed with her, simply tracing her fingers with his own where they were resting in the narrow space between them.

Except…he wasn’t her James. Not from back then. His hair was too short, and his face was clean-shaven, without even a light layer of stubble. His eyes were lighter, gleaming with youthful energy. His metal arm was missing, with a natural, unscarred flesh limb in its place. However, that arm was still cool to the touch, as if the metal plates she knew were simply hiding beneath the surface. Or perhaps because even in a dream, she couldn’t imagine feeling another texture. Couldn’t fathom feeling anything else from his embrace besides that unique sensation of simultaneous warmth and cold. But otherwise, he was a totally different James. One that deep down, she intrinsically knew to be the James Barnes that existed before he became the Winter Soldier. Before Hydra stole his life from him. The life he _ should _have had. 

The life he would have had without her.

It felt odd to face him with that in mind. Like it was some sort of invasion of privacy to look at this version of him. Her dream-self reached a hand up to stroke his jawline, as if verifying he was real. He turned his face to nuzzle into her palm, pressing a kiss into the fleshy part at the base of her thumb. It felt different without the scratch of his stubble, but it was no less the same thing _ her _James usually did. The one who lost this life after Hydra brought him back from the brink of death. The one Hydra refused to let die in all the years afterward.

“How could anyone do those things to you?” Wanda heard herself ask. “How could they take everything away from you? From the most beautiful, resilient soul I’ve ever known?”

He blinked at her as if he didn’t understand. “I’m here, doll,” he assured. “I’m here. I’m OK.”

“Are you?” she pressed, unaware some of her fears from their last conversation in the waking world were starting to bleed into this one. “Are we going to be OK?”

He nodded confidently. “Yeah. As long as you’re here, we will be.”

She wasn’t so sure about that. But he didn’t leave any room for arguments, leaning up and rolling over until he was hovering right over her. He kept his weight on his arms on either side of her, but she could still feel his weight was lighter than it usually was. What it must have been before receiving Hydra’s enhancing serum. He kissed the corner of her mouth, then trailed a series of kisses downward, following a path from the hinge of her jaw, to the side of her throat, and down to her chest. Then down her middle, and then her stomach. 

She shivered at that, feeling something inside of her tingle. He went on regardless, pressing small kisses lower on her stomach, and on her hip bones, and then even lower, making her feel the need to shiver again. Her body gave a violent jerk instead, which knocked her back into wakefulness. 

She was disoriented in those few heartbeats between being asleep and suddenly being awake. She closed her eyes against the light of morning peeking into her face from the edges of the curtain and squeezed the pillow still in her arms, confused at first that it wasn’t James. Then she realized he wasn’t in bed with her at all, prompting her to remember how he had left yesterday evening. 

It was another several heartbeats before she could distinguish whether those moments right before he left had been real or another part of her dream. She opened her eyes with a deep sigh once she remembered it had indeed happened in reality. Meaning she was pregnant, and James knew it. And she didn’t know what was going to become of them because of it.

Wanda rolled onto her back, noticing her fingertips were absentmindedly retracing the path down her body that James had made with his mouth in her dream. She stopped once she reached her stomach, stretching her fingers to press her palm flat against the smooth skin under her ratty sleep shirt. There was nothing to feel there, of course. Not yet. 

It was strange to contemplate what was going to come. Though she was rapidly discovering it was near impossible to _ stop _thinking about it. What it meant, and all of the questions it raised about her body. About her life.

She wished she had at least asked Hilda how far along she was. She wanted to know how long this had been affecting her when she hadn’t even realized. How long she had been getting healed by the Winter Soldier serum. How many other signs of pregnancy she had dismissed as nothing. Upon reviewing the past week alone, there were so many things she thought to examine in a different light now. How much more tired she was. How much slower her scarlet was to react, even when she was in the headspace of a nightmare. How much hungrier she had been for James’s touch. Had that truly been a product of their privacy at the vacation house, or was it her body craving more of his serum? 

She didn’t know if she would ever find answers to such questions. Given the uniqueness of both her and James’s enhancements, it wasn’t likely even Hilda or Helen Cho knew what to expect. She supposed the only person who would know enough about their physiologies to at least make informed predictions would be someone who had initially made them enhanced. Someone from Hydra.

The thought to ask them for anything did _ not _help her nausea.

With a miserable groan, Wanda sat up in bed, curling her fists around clumps of the blanket on either side of her as the nausea rolled up her chest. She sighed tiredly when the true name for it crossed her mind. _ Morning sickness. _

God, she really was pregnant.

Fortunately, this particular bout wasn’t too intense, and she could muscle through it well enough. She wondered if that was normal or if it was another side effect of her enhancements. Hilda had mentioned it was possible Wanda’s scarlet had been suppressing signs of the pregnancy until now. 

In her efforts to ward off sickness, Wanda nearly missed the sensation of something else slowly beginning to buzz in her mind. Something she was more familiar with.

_ Pietro? _

She felt his thoughts seep into her own mind. _ I’m in the elevator. Are you decent? _

She didn’t answer. Instead, she idly sat there a few seconds more, garnering the energy to get out of bed and see to her brother. _ And _push down how sick she felt, so he wouldn’t pick up on it through their mental bond. That didn’t leave her with any energy leftover to care about making herself presentable. She had at least worn one of her own sleep shirts and pajama pants rather than only an old shirt of James’s, so there was that. The most effort she contributed to her appearance now was pulling her hair back into a low bun.

Wanda dragged her feet to the door of her suite, finding Pietro there, dressed in a thick black coat and track pants as if he was going into town. He was giving their bond persistent pulls of concern, seeking to know what had kept her away after he last saw her in the medical ward. Luna was sitting at his side like a dutiful guard, regarding Wanda with eyes that also seemed worried for her.

“Starting hibernation a little early, aren’t you?” Pietro said, pretending to be more nonchalant than he really felt about his sister’s recent absence. 

“Sorry,” she grumbled in return, inwardly grimacing at how much the useless apology sounded like the ones she had offered James before. She had to stop herself from completely recalling the memory now that Pietro was here to possibly see it in his own mind’s eye. “It was a long day yesterday. I got burnt out early.”

“Yeah?” Pietro’s gaze surveyed her, as if scanning for anything physically amiss. “How did it go in medical?”

Wasn’t that a loaded question. Once again, she didn’t have the luxury of even thinking too deeply on the matter, for risk of Pietro being able to figure out something was off from the way her emotions welled up at her end of their bond. She sought a distraction from it by stepping back to let Pietro and Luna into the suite with her, carrying herself to the kitchen. The click of Luna’s nails against the tile let her know the pair were following.

“Well, I’m not dying, at least,” was the most neutral answer she could find. She settled into one of the chairs at the breakfast table, letting some of her tiredness from how abruptly she’d woken up show in the slow way she moved. Pietro watched from where he was now leaning against the wall of the breakfast nook, letting Luna travel ahead of him to plant herself at Wanda’s feet and press her nose into the witch’s hand. 

“I’m eating and resting fine,” Wanda continued, reaching up to stroke Luna’s head. Admittedly, the soft texture of the shepherd mutt’s fur was pretty soothing. “Contrary to your belief, I can do both just fine from here.”

“Yeah, at least there’s that,” Pietro agreed, though he still sounded unassured. “But how are you doing? After being alone in medical, I mean? I would have stayed if you needed me.”

“No, don’t worry. It’s…not that.”

“Then did something happen with Barnes?” It bothered Wanda how fast her brother was to jump to that conclusion. “He did tell you about the mission, didn’t he? Cap told us to respect that he wanted to tell you himself, but from what I gathered yesterday, you still didn’t know.”

“He told me. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“It’s fine,” Wanda said, perhaps too insistently. She truly wasn’t upset over James choosing the last possible minute to tell her about Steve calling him to a mission. Granted, if she hadn’t had her own news to relay to him, and had a subsequent conversation of her own that she was anxious to finish when he got back, maybe she would have been a little more bothered. She would worry (well, be _ more _worried) about how he would fare, or if he was even ready for something out in the field yet, however minor it was. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

The sharpness in Pietro’s tone as he said that took her aback. It shouldn’t have, given that she knew it was born from well intentions. A watered down version of their mental bond and less time spent totally dependent on each other had done nothing to lessen how protective her brother was of her, even against her own tendencies to neglect her wellbeing. In fact, the distance had only made him more so. 

But this was different. She wasn’t trying to hide anything from him per se, but it was more a matter of figuring how to break the news to him in the softest way possible. She didn’t want to just spring it on him like Hilda had to her, or the way she had to James.

“I am fine,” she reiterated, adding a second hand to Luna’s fur. “Just tired. A lot happened yesterday, and all in the span of just a few hours, so…I’m tired.”

That was truthful enough to appease him. Though she could hear his mind ticking with temptation to ask for more detail. He decided against it though, presumably not wanting to bother her more than she already seemed to be. _ Trusting _her to elaborate further when she felt ready to. 

Which she would. She sent him reassurance of it through their bond.

With a short sigh, Pietro finally relaxed. 

“Yeah, well,” he started to say as he pulled out the chair across from Wanda, settling into it. “I’ve been tired, too. While you were gone, everything was just the same faces and the same exercises and the same boring walls of this place. I mean, I know it was like that before, too, but at least Stark’s wedding let us get a change of scenery.”

Wanda nodded her agreement.

“So, why don’t we do that again?”

That gave her pause. “…what do you mean?”

“Let’s go out, and get a change of scenery. We can take Luna. She needs some exercise of her own, and she hates her treadmill.”

Wanda stared at her brother, uncertain if he was being serious. “Pietro, we can not just ‘go out.’ We’re supposed to stay at the Tower.”

He shrugged off her admonishing tone. “Why? I leave all the time.”

She balked at that. “Pietro!”

“What? You knew that. How else do you think I found those red gloves for your uniform?”

“You had those delivered.”

“I had to find them first!”

Wanda groaned, leaning forward with her hands over her face. “Pietro. There is a reason we’re not supposed to leave.”

Pietro was unbothered, reclining back in his own chair. “Yes, it’s so we don’t get recognized. But guess what? A cap and some sunglasses goes a long way in that regard, too.”

“I refuse to believe it’s that easy.”

“Fine, then believe in Luna. You take a dog anywhere, she’s all people are going to pay attention to.” 

Wanda looked at said canine, now lounging on her belly beside the young woman’s chair. Luna’s tail thumped softly against the floor when she noticed Wanda looking at her. 

“Alright, that I do believe,” the witch admitted. “And the team lets you get away with this?”

“I don’t think they know. Stark’s Big Brother tech has apparently not said anything.”

Wanda sighed shortly, worried of the implications behind that. She’d had her own experience with sneaking around behind the team’s back, and it had ended with someone else being able to sneak past them as well, through her. It was unsettling to think of potentially recreating that past mistake.

“Look.” Pietro leaned forward, taking his sister’s hands in his own and letting her see his shift to a legitimately serious mood. “At this hour, most of the people out there are only concerned about getting to work on time. They’re not going to stop long enough to question who we are. And even if they do, why should we care? We’re not gonna do anything. Just walk around, let our dog blow off some energy. Why should we be locked in our rooms because some people are intimidated by our powers?”

That was easy for him to say. His powers hadn’t been what destroyed the Avengers’ Facility.

From his end of their bond, Pietro shoved the embittered thought aside for her. Without it, she was able to see there _ were _ some good points to what he was suggesting. They weren’t going to be doing anything that would garner attention. Pietro had apparently done this enough times to know how to navigate it smartly. And she could sympathize with his feelings of slow-building stir-craziness. It made her guilty to remember how they had both been feeling that way for a while, and she had gone off with James elsewhere while Pietro stayed behind. 

Not to mention, adhering to what Pietro wanted was likely going to be her best chance at warming him up for the conversation about his becoming an uncle.

That was a dangerous thought to have when he was only a few inches away, but to her luck, he didn’t seem to pick up on it. 

Wanda sighed heavily, pulling her hands from Pietro’s grasp so she could stand up. “Oh, fine,” she relented on her way to her bedroom to change. “I’ll go. But only to make sure you two don’t get into any trouble.”

Pietro snorted, the surface of his mind slipping seamlessly into a flippant easiness. And triumph, no doubt caused by his being able to talk her into something when normally the opposite case was true. “Why should we stop now?”

* * *

Outside, the weather was cold. Deceptively so, given how bright the morning sun was overhead. Wanda had thought she would fare fine with just a sage-green jacket she had, a black cotton top, and ripped black jeans. But as she and her brother made their way through Central Park at a sluggish pace, due to Luna’s desire to sniff _ every blade of grass _ they passed, she was rapidly wishing she had at least worn another layer. Her only comfort was that despite how busy the foot traffic around them was, Pietro had been right (so far) in that the only persons who spared a second glance for them were kids whose minds were alight with curiosity over whether they could stop and ask to pet Luna. 

Still.

“The next time you get a pet,” Wanda griped as she stood a few paces ahead of Pietro and Luna, waiting for the latter to get bored with whatever she had found in the grass, “I want it to be something small and with low-energy. Like a turtle.”

“Fine by me,” Pietro returned, finally pulling Luna along to continue walking with his sister. “I think I’ll call him Speedy.”

“Har, har.”

Pietro smirked at the sight of her crossing her arms in a weak defense against the breeze that sent a fresh, harsh chill through them both. As unpleasant as it was, the witch was mostly relieved he didn’t notice her scarlet wasn’t doing anything to keep its host warm.

“I think living with the Avengers has softened you, little sister.This cold would have been nothing back in Sokovia.”

“In Sokovia, we knew to travel with everything we owned on us,” Wanda pointed out, scowling a little at the nickname her twin had used for her. “The team would rather have us learn to be adaptable to changing conditions. Even changing from the heat of a beach to the cold of the city in a day’s period.”

Pietro breathed a laugh at her expense. “Well, if it’s any consolation, when we get back to the Tower, I can show you where Hilly keeps the heated blankets for—”

Wanda’s surprise stopped her right in her tracks. “_Hilly? _”

Pietro stopped as well, apparently needing a second to realize what he had said. “I mean, Hilda—you know what I mean!”

She wasn’t so sure she did. Pietro started walking again, and she had to scurry to catch up to him. “Is there something you need to tell me, dear brother?”

He began walking faster, which was all the answer she needed. “There is nothing to tell. She happens to be a nice girl, so she lets me call her by a nickname sometimes.”

“_Sometimes _ does not lead to a slip like that.”

“It might…it might! Shut up.”

Now Wanda was the one laughing at her sibling’s expense. 

“Well, whatever _ this _ is,” she gestured to Pietro’s overall form, “I implore you to be careful with it. She is the Head Nurse, after all, and I doubt the team can spare the time or energy to replace her if the worst comes to it.”

Pietro frowned, wrapping part of Luna’s leash around his hand as she began pulling it forward. “You don’t have to make it sound like I would take her to the woods and kill her.”

“I only mean, I know it’s outside your field of expertise to…well, _ talk _ to a girl like that without the luxury of knowing you have the rest of the women in Novi Grad to move onto after the first awkward moment. And if you stop going to the med bay, the team is not going to take it as an issue with _ you_.”

“Oh, like you knew everything when you first started seeing Barnes.”

“I—” Wanda stopped herself, knowing she wasn’t in a good place to refute that. She was hesitant to even describe the early stages of her and James’s relationship as them “seeing” each other in any traditional romantic sense. It was more complicated than that. Wanda was able to recall how uncertain she had been of what she was even feeling for James until well after a physical relationship had started between them.

“You know what?” Pietro held out an arm as if to bodily stop Wanda from thinking any further on the matter. “I don’t want to know.”

“You really don’t.”

Luna suddenly lunged forward with a whine, audibly straining the blue nylon of her leash. 

“Hey, hey. _ Vse horosho_,” Pietro soothed, gently pulling her back. 

Wanda didn’t see what had gotten the dog so excited, but in all honesty, she wasn’t really looking. Her mind was still stuck on memories of how she first met James. How it had started as her secret favour to Steve, and then before she knew it, morphed into something for herself to find solace in. Her taking care of him had then quickly turned into the physical affection that had gotten her into her current state. Her body healed, and now able to get pregnant. Now actually pregnant. 

She still wanted to know how much change had happened without her realizing. How long she’d been getting healed by the Winter Soldier serum, and how it affected other factors of her body.

She had to tell Pietro about it. Before the rest of their pseudo-family knew, she wanted this baby’s blood relatives to know first. She had told the father, and now she had to tell the uncle.

But how the hell was she supposed to bring it up? 

She looked around at the civilians passing by them, finding herself filled with a sort of envy for how mundane and simple their lives were (and not for the first time). How easy would all of this be if she was like them, unenhanced and under no obligation to the Avengers? To a superhero team responsible for the _ entire world’s _ safety? What would it be like to simply go home after this, and talk to her brother, and her friends, and the father of her child about the pregnancy with only safe, _ normal _questions in mind? The usual concerns, like where they would get everything the baby needed, where they would fit a nursery into their home, or what sort of weird cravings she should anticipate. 

Those were all valid questions here, too, but for her, there were additional, more pressing unknowns about her body (even without pregnancy). Unknowns about how her scarlet would react, and whether it would accept the change to its host’s body to begin with. Not to mention, also how the team would react, and whether they would be able to find a way to fit this into their inconsistent lifestyle. Whether they would have the time and energy, between missions and public relations expeditions, to help figure out how to manage what would potentially be a serum _and _ magically enhanced child. The very first of the known world, at that.

“Wanda?”

“Hmm?” She turned to see Pietro had stopped, and was regarding her with a suspicious look.

“Why can’t you just tell me what it is? Whatever keeps bothering you.”

Wanda breathed a shaky sigh, folding her arms around herself again as she avoided his gaze. She continued looking around them instead, now finding a whole street’s worth of moving cars before them to be distracted by. “Trust me, I would. Only, it…it’s difficult to explain.”

“Then don’t explain it,” Pietro returned simply. “Show it to me.”

The witch scoffed, rolling her eyes a little. Not at him, but rather herself. In hindsight, the only reason this was so difficult was because _ she _ was making it difficult. It was only Pietro. The worst he would do was disapprove of her relationship with James, which he usually did without prompt anyways. Anything else, he never ceased to trust her to use her own judgement with. That was simply how they functioned. She was their guide, and he was her guard.

“You’ve been quiet since yesterday,” he went on, coming forward to nudge her a little with his elbow. “I haven’t felt anything from you since being in the med bay together.”

“You haven’t?” Wanda questioned, legitimately taken aback by that. 

Her surprise spread to Pietro, his brows meeting in confusion. “I thought you were stifling your end on purpose. Because of whatever happened after I left.”

No wonder he wasn’t picking up on the exact nature of what she was hiding. While she had been receiving input from his end of the bond like normal, he had been receiving a weaker signal from hers. Yet another abnormality in her scarlet’s behavior, just like how Hilda reported it moving more actively throughout her system, in spite of Wanda’s otherwise restful state the day before. 

“No,” the witch told her brother. “No, I wasn’t trying to block you out. It’s just…my scarlet’s been acting up.”

“What? How so? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Wanda somehow managed to keep her voice level despite feeling the franticness of Pietro’s concern bleeding into her own mind. “I didn’t even notice until yesterday.”

“Did you tell Hilly?”

“She’s the one who pointed it out. It came up during my physical.”

“And? She didn’t say what could be causing it?”

There it was. The opening she had been looking for. It had arrived with so easily, and with so little fanfare, she almost didn’t trust that it was truly the right time. But deep down she knew she had to take the opportunity now. If not now, then she would likely not get around to it until she told the whole team as well, and something about that felt like such an impersonal thing to do to her brother. It would be like telling him he meant no better to her than any of the other Avengers.

“She, um…” Wanda tried to say, picking at her nail polish. “Well, she—”

Luna sprung forward again, this time towards something the twins had passed behind them. She gave a couple of hearty barks, spooking some of the smaller children around them and drawing unwanted attention to her masters. 

“Luna!” Pietro hissed in reprimand. 

The canine only whined, then barked again. 

“She’s not usually this antsy,” Pietro told his sister, keeping his head low as if to hide his face from passersby. It made Wanda nervous, and she half-wished they actually had worn caps and sunglasses to better mask their faces. “I think it’s time to get her home.”

Wanda agreed, though her eyes stayed on Luna. She noticed then how the dog was tense, and her hackles were raised on end. It was becoming increasingly clear that she wasn’t restless because something had excited her. Something was making her anxious, had made her feel threatened.

Something was wrong.

Wanda looked around again, this time taking care in searching for whatever had set off her brother’s dog. “Pietro, I think we—”

The air suddenly exploded in a rapid succession of sound. A piercing crack, a few startled screams, a violent _ thwip _of metal piercing skin, and a sharp yelp from Luna. The dog jerked forward as far as her leash would let her, a splash of red bursting from above onto the powdery white expanse of her back. Wanda, herself, couldn’t manage a sound, groping along her chest and shoulder to find the wound she could feel stinging her skin.

Except she didn’t find anything. Nothing was there. 

She hadn’t been shot. The blood wasn’t hers.

The blood _ wasn’t hers. _

_ No! _

“No! _ Pietro!_”

He was already falling, barely able to twist in time to catch himself on a bench behind him, collapsing to half-lay on it with a weak groan. Wanda instantly dove forward, pressing her belly to him and covering his body with her own. She managed to tuck all but his right arm beneath her, the limb getting pulled by Luna’s leash where the nylon was still wrapped tightly around his hand, even as the dog fell into a frenzy of barking. The sounds were nearly lost amidst the shouts of civilians around them, all frantically moving in a disjointed mass of bodies rushing to flee the area. For Wanda, there was an additional layer of sound from their thoughts, loud with panic and confusion, swimming in the air around her. It mixed with her own innate horror, which was already made worse by her ability to receive the phantom pains of Pietro’s wound in her own shoulder. 

The only source of relief she could fathom at the moment was the burn of her scarlet honing in at her palms, readied to lash out at whatever threat there was with the slightest slip of her control. It was the most immediate response her powers had exhibited since she’d had her last nightmare.

However, none of her scarlet did appear. She couldn’t spare the thought to command it while also mentally shoving down the noise of everyone around her so she could listen for another gunshot and grasping her brother’s face in her hands, imploring him—_begging _him to answer her calls of his name. He didn’t, instead staring wide-eyed at where his own hand pressed against the open wound, blood pulsing from it. He gave large heaves for breath, and their mental bond splintered with each one, weakening more and more as her scarlet tried to regress back towards its host, to spare her the stress of sharing his pain and discomfort.

It was building up to the same sudden disconnect she had felt in Sokovia. When she thought he had died from wounds just like this.

Wanda’s breaths started leaving her in great shuddering heaves, too. That memory of coming so close to losing him—of having her entire world shatter around her like Ultron’s metal bodies oozed into the present, blurring the red of the blood on her fingers now with the red of her powers in the air back then.

She couldn’t lose him. He was all she had. They were all each other had!

Someone else’s blood-stained fingers wrapped around hers. 

“Wanda—” Pietro stopped for another breath, hissing a curse in their mother tongue through his teeth. His eyes were more grounded now, as his enhancements clearly let him process everything at three times the speed he should have. “Wanda, we’re not back there. We’re not back there.”

Wanda barely heard him. He squeezed her fingers, as if he could sense she wasn’t fully with him in spite of the near invisible presence of their mental bond. “Wanda, _ stop_. Stop thinking.”

“Pietro—”

“It’s fine, I have it,” he insisted, returning his hand to the wound. He groaned a little as he pressed against it. “You go. Go!”

“No!” She would rather die than leave him. “Get up. Get up! I’ll get you—”

“Don’t. Get them. Get _ them_.”

Wanda was too scattered for a moment to understand what he was getting at. Then she thought to follow his gaze to the crowd of people around them. To Luna, still vehemently barking at a group of them that were scrambling to retreat back into the heart of the park. Luna, a dog that had been trained to be a service animal, not easily distracted or bothered by large gatherings of people, suddenly losing it, even when her charge was hurt…

She knew where the threat came from. 

And it was among the civilians.

Wanda stood up, her first instincts pulling her towards the fray. But as she unpeeled her body from Pietro’s side, her blood turned to ice water. She thought of the baby inside of her. _ James’s _ baby. A part of him just as much as her. 

She couldn’t jump into what was a potentially a line of fire. She couldn’t put herself at risk of being killed or captured. Not like this. Not with what she was carrying—what was partially James at risk, too.

But she couldn’t leave innocent civilians at risk either. Not with someone who had already hurt her brother. 

And she was _not _ going to let them get away with shooting her brother.

Wanda welcomed the protective thrum of her scarlet, letting it heat up her blood and slip past her carefully built mental restraints. It took a slight push at first, but soon, thin wisps of scarlet appeared, weaving between her fingers on each hand. At the same time, she reached for the clip linking Luna’s leash to her collar. The witch’s fingertips never made physical contact with the metal, for the entire clip was promptly eaten away by the tendrils of psionic energy. 

Luna stumbled forward, taking a split-second to process she was no longer tethered to anyone before dashing forward, making a beeline for the walkway leading back into the park. Wanda raced after her, unable to keep up with Luna’s lither form and extra use of legs. Once they had both reached the horde of people, Wanda lost sight of the dog, getting jostled and shoved every which way by the other rushing bodies. She heard herself shouting something, her voice lost somewhere in the tight space. She didn’t even know if she was urging the other people to get out of the way to steer them clear of where Luna was headed, where the shooter was, or so she could regain her view of the white dog. 

Eventually, the crowd did disperse for her. Everyone in her immediate vicinity simply stopped, freezing in place or ducking low as if poorly attempting to shield themselves from her. It wasn’t until then that she realized her scarlet had begun flaring up into brighter, larger bulbs of light at each of her palms. 

She didn’t have time to assuage their fears of her bringing more harm. She needed to find Luna.

Wanda slowed in her running to properly look around, tendrils of scarlet hissing in the air as they followed her hands. She could finally feel the blaze of it coursing through her system at the higher pace it had apparently been running since she had gotten pregnant. It was burning, almost overwhelmingly so. Almost. It was tempered only by the cold weather and a sheer, unshakable drive to protect. A drive that was both her own and Pietro’s, each version flowing from one to the other through their mental bond, which she thought she could feel regaining some of its strength as her scarlet externalized itself more and more. 

Finally, the witch heard barking. It wasn’t Luna, but rather another dog farther ahead. But Luna was what the other dog was barking at, pulling on its leash as if to chase her as she ran past them. Those few, short heartbeats wherein Wanda had lost sight of Luna had apparently been crucial, for Luna was so far ahead now that she was nearly out of Wanda’s line of sight again, heading for an area behind a small hill. 

Thinking quickly, the Maximoff sister darted sideways, pushing herself through a young couple that flinched when she, in all the glory of her unnaturally glowing hands (perhaps also her eyes), neared. Beyond them was a cluster of rocks that made up the incline to the top of the hill. Wanda bounded up the incline with surprising grace, receiving some help from her scarlet as it fanned out at her feet anytime she felt remotely insecure about keeping her balance. Once at the top, she wasted only a second finding Luna again. Then she was casting out a thick hex behind her to launch herself through the air. She had only ever tried such a thing for short distances in the controlled, close-knit space of the training gym at Stark Tower. So, she was in no way expecting her attempt here to carry her as far as it did, helping her clear several yards of the park in no time at all. 

Her landing was much less smooth than her take off had been. Scarlet flared out beneath her in a last-ditch effort to cushion her impact with the ground, but did little to spare her the burden of her own weight suddenly falling onto her left ankle as it rolled awkwardly. A stinging, burdensome pain jolted up from her knee to her hip as she fell over. She saved her upper half with one hand bracing against the earth, whilst the other instinctively went to her belly. 

Wanda stayed there, frozen and panting for breath for a moment, paralyzed by fear as she noticed how close she was to the edge of a narrow ravine. How close she had come to _ falling _ down the ravine, its steep edge fencing in a concrete pathway that ran beneath a nearby bridge. 

She clutched her stomach tighter.

On the path below, a streak of white speckled with red rushed past. _ Luna_. The dog jumped up, teeth loudly snapping at someone who barely managed to disappear under the bridge nearby before Wanda could see anything other than the edge of a long navy coat. Luna yelped as she was shoved backward, then pounced again, fading into the shadows of the bridge’s underside. This time the sound of her teeth snapping cut off, indicating she had latched onto something. 

She had them. Luna had _ them_.

That sprung Wanda back into action. She scrambled back to her feet, her leg spiking a sharp ache through her system as if in protest. She pushed it down, welcoming in its place the burn of unnatural energy that she was more desensitized to. It obediently flared up at her palms, glowing just as strongly as it had been when she first left Pietro. She stood waiting for her powers to gather additional strength, her very being shaking with the effort to unleash as much of them as possible without completely losing herself as well. Her head swam with the pressure of it, with how hot her blood rapidly became. 

_ Focus! _ she urged herself when the sensation of light-headedness began to creep in. 

Once she felt a little more confident in the hex she had built up, Wanda stepped over the edge of the ravine. Her scarlet immediately flared out, slowing her drop into a serene, semi-floating descent onto the concrete below. Another wave of red fanned out around her feet, this time more effective in smoothing out her landing against the ground. However, she still hobbled a bit from how her leg ached as she tried to rush forward too soon after her stumble. 

She immediately spotted Luna, the canine’s bright white fur like a beacon in the darkness of the tunnel, tugging on the sleeve of her adversary with her teeth as if deliberately trying to drag him out to face Wanda. The Maximoff sister thought she could see the outline of a handgun in its holster on the person’s hip, which was most likely what had set Luna off to begin with.

What had most likely hurt Pietro.

Wanda snarled, stalking forward with renewed purpose. Her heart pounded in her ears and her hexes snapped into life around her, both so loud that they quickly became all she could hear. Her skin crawled, burning and electrified with untamed power, with pure unbridled _ rage_. She could see it physically manifesting, waves of red encompassing her vision, could feel it setting her very soul ablaze. So much red, building and building and _ building_, until it boiled over within her.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

Business at Stark Tower was running as usual. Agents and staff were milling around their designated work spaces in the lower floors, carrying out what were considered “housekeeping” duties for the time being, seeing how the rest of the world’s affairs were quiet. At the upper, residential floors of the building, things were quiet, too. With Sam currently upstate, overseeing reconstruction at the Avengers’ Facility, and with Steve and Bucky gone to a (hopefully) abandoned Hydra base to mine for data on the organization in London, their ward was emptier than usual. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Natasha wasn’t too worried about her teammates that were out.

But she was a little worried about Tony. She had run into him and Pepper in the team common area shortly after breakfast and had stuck around to share their company over coffee. However, for the entire forty minutes she had been there, Tony had been pacing around the room, locked in a phone call with Sam. From what Natasha could hear of Tony’s end, neither of them were making much sense.

“How did he even get past you? I thought you had your…” Tony trailed off as he listened to whatever Sam intervened with. He suddenly halted in his pacing, voice rising with incredulity. “What do you mean he just _ shrunk?_”

At that, even Pepper, who had long ago grown accustomed to the eccentric antics that came with the Stark name, looked up from the news article she had been reading on her tablet to eye her husband curiously.

Tony offered no semblance of context, still listening to Sam on the phone with his face frozen in disbelief. “You bet your ass I’m gonna tell Cap! I think he deserves to know his best pal is suddenly under the impression that our lives are a Rick Moranis movie.”

Another pause for Sam. Natasha thought she could now hear Wilson’s faint voice through the phone, even from the other side of the room. 

“Fine, fine, you know what? Fine!” Tony waved his hand dismissively, fingers eventually landing at the bridge of his nose to pinch it in exasperation. “Handle it. Handle it. I don’t…no, I don’t care how. Just…whatever you gotta do to get ahold of him. You said he gave you his name?”

A beat of silence, this time with Sam’s voice too quiet to pick up.

“Alright,” Tony concluded. “I’ll dig up whatever I can. Keep us updated on your end. Yeah? Yeah, sure. Fine. OK. Bye.”

He hung up with a huff, striding back across the ways to return to his seat beside Pepper at the breakfast bar. He uttered a second huff as he unceremoniously dropped himself onto the stool, leaning onto the bar with his face in his hands. “I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Oh, you think?” was Natasha’s sardonic reply.

Tony looked up at her through his fingers. “When did you and I become the responsible ones?” he asked, dropping his hands from his face. “I thought Rogers was supposed to be our fearless leader, in charge of everything.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows in an expression of faux surprise. “Are you saying you think he would look prettier than you, sitting in all those government meetings in a fancy suit?”

“Of course not. I’m only saying I’m not happy about it.”

Natasha tried to smirk, but found it was hard when she truly did empathize with him. Their workload had increased a lot in the past year, especially with compensating for the fallout from the Battle of Sokovia, justifying keeping the Maximoff twins in their custody, and trying to keep the presence of Barnes among them hidden, all piling up on top of the standard duties that came with managing the Avengers as a team.

“Hey, Pep?” Tony turned to his wife beside him. “What do you say we go back to Venice? That was nice, huh? I think I actually managed to relax for a whole hour while we were over there. Let’s go back to that.”

“It was nice,” Pepper acquiesced, not looking up from the article she was reading. “But Stark Industries can only function for so long without either of us available to put out any sudden fires at a moment’s notice.”

Tony sagged in disappointment. “Ah, yes. How could I ever forget how hopelessly needy they are over there?”

The inventor stood up, taking his nearly empty mug of coffee with him. He trudged around Pepper to reach the end of the breakfast bar, squeezing behind it to refill his coffee at the machine on the counter behind Nat. 

“But what if we sent a middle-man in our stead?” he suggested as he waited for the dark liquid to fill up the ceramic mug. “What would you say to that job, Miss Triple Impostor? Go back to Stark Industries for a while? For old times’ sake?”

Natasha didn’t need to contemplate her answer. “I would say, with all due respect to the two of you, and the legitimately productive work your industry has done, that I would rather sell my hair.”

Tony pressed his hand over his heart as if injured. “That’s harsh, red.”

The spy had no sympathy for him. “Yeah, well, it’s still nicer than SHIELD, and an entire team of heroes that have been just as needy as your corporate kinfolk lately.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that. I’m feeling the burn on that end of the candle, too. It’s getting a little ridiculous, if you ask me.” He appeared at Natasha’s side, setting his full mug of coffee beside hers. “Not to mention, we’re getting no help outside of the team. Let’s face it, SHIELD’s numbers aren’t even a hundred strong and currently, those numbers are _ shrinking_.”

He was right about that. There were various reasons the amount of allies they had from SHIELD was slowly dwindling. Agents were jumping ship left and right, seeking more stable job positions with organizations like the CIA or FBI, or even other, more domestic businesses. Some were simply disappearing off the radar, apparently taking on independent missions only to never report back to them again. Among that group was the former director himself, Nick Fury, although he had made it a point to still check in with the team for extraneous cases, like during the Battle of Sokovia or in the aftermath of Wanda destroying their facility. 

“Yeah, well,” Natasha muttered, watching a light spot of cream swirl around in her drink. “Doesn’t seem like we can do much about that.”

“About SHIELD maybe.”

That made Nat turn to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, SHIELD isn’t the only part of the equation. In fact, I think our team was standing on its own legs for a while even before things fell to shit for them. Why not take the future of the team into our own hands as well? Instead of waiting for SHIELD to feed us everything. Fury can’t be the only one that knows where all the do-gooders with out-of-this-world skills hang out.”

“You’re saying you want to recruit more people to be part of the Avengers? Instead of SHIELD?”

“Yeah. I mean, with SHIELD still in tatters the way it is, where else should we tell ‘em to go? A circus?”

Natasha shook her head. “Somehow, I feel like adding more bodies to the mix would be counterintuitive to the whole ‘reduce our workload’ thing.”

“Or it could help us balance it out. At least give us another pair of hands to take over some of it.”

“No,” Natasha said adamantly, hiding the extent of her disapproval by taking a sip of her coffee. “Not with Barnes hiding here.”

“We can move him.”

“Where? To a closet under the stairs?”

“He doesn’t want to be active-duty. Not even for small stuff, like this data mining stuff. We can find a confidential spot to house him, and he won’t have to cross paths with any new recruits. If we find the right spot, maybe he won’t even have to cross paths with _ us _anymore.”

Natasha scoffed, looking to Pepper for support. “Is that what he’s really after?”

Pepper only briefly glanced up from her reading. “No. He really has been looking into other possibly enhanced persons. All this past week, he was up every night until 2 a.m. going over everything he could find on sightings of them. From SHIELD’s old reports to really weird YouTube videos.”

Knowing the pair had been on their honeymoon for part of that previous week, Natasha raised a skeptical eyebrow at Tony. “You sound like a fun husband.”

“Yeah, admittedly, those were a bit of a waste,” Tony confessed. “Most of what I could find turned out to be elaborate hoaxes. There’s only one—_maybe _ two goons with special talents out there that seemed legitimate.”

“Sounds cute,” Natasha quipped. “But still, no. I want our situation with keeping the twins here to remain top priority before we even think about moving onto something else.”

Tony slouched, finally seeming to relent. “Well, fine, then. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Oh, Tony,” Pepper spoke up. “Don’t say it like that. Why don’t you find a new project to work on? One with lower stakes? Like something for the team we already have. Oh!” Her expression brightened with an idea. “You could bring back those movie nights you all used to have at the compound. Remember? You told me you were trying to go through all the animated Disney movies. I think everyone enjoyed that. I’ve even heard Steve reference _ Hercules _ a couple times since then.”

“Oh, really?” Tony said flatly. “The Cap liked the movie about a skinny twerp with a heart of gold who transforms into a muscle-bound celebrity hero who develops a crush on a disillusioned redhead?”

The inventor leaned over to press against Natasha, obnoxiously squishing her against the counter as if he didn’t see her there at all. “I wonder _ why_,” he exclaimed dramatically.

Natasha grabbed his face and pushed him off of her.

A chime sounded from overhead, which was Stark’s AI, Jarvis’s usual method of calling for attention when he had something to announce. “Sir?” the perpetually calm voice prompted.

“What?” Tony answered shortly.

“You asked to be informed if any of the Avengers’ names became featured in recent news. Such a story has just gone live.”

Tony sighed tiredly, dropping his head. “Pull it up.”

Moving from beside Natasha, Tony strode out of the kitchen to approach the large television screen sitting in the den nearby. The whole way, Natasha could hear him grumbling under his breath. “I swear, if that asshole who just drop-kicked Sam, or whatever, somehow made the news…”

Natasha and Pepper watched him go, each of them simultaneously amused and sympathetic of Tony’s overwhelmed mood. Then Nat turned her attention back on her coffee, for she wasn’t terribly concerned with whatever news there was. Most of the time, Jarvis would misunderstand the difference between actual news and entertainment news, and quite frankly, Natasha wasn’t interested in hearing which of her teammates were supposedly dating each other after being seen within a foot of the other. 

Tony asked Jarvis to start the news story from its beginning, and to turn up the volume. At first, Natasha looked up in annoyance. Again, she had no interest in speculative drivel that was made up solely for other people’s entertainment. But then she actually listened to the reporter’s tone, so grave and informal, and saw footage of unquestionably _ real _ happenings, complete with police tape, a gurney being unloaded from the back of an ambulance, and spooked pedestrians huddling together as they awaited questioning from reporters. When Natasha caught the name “Maximoff,” she immediately abandoned her coffee and rushed towards the den, slowing to a stop only when she reached Tony’s side. Seeing him up close, arms stiffly crossed over his chest and face beset by a sullen frown, only confirmed that whatever this was, it was real and it was _ bad_.

There had been a shooting on the outskirts of Central Park. A sniper job from the rooftop of one of the surrounding buildings. No casualties (thank goodness) and only one person seriously injured. That one person being Pietro, who the news station had footage of needing a police officer’s help to stand up and practically dragged to a gurney. The clip cut away before it could show how much he was bleeding, but Natasha caught a glimpse of the maroon stain on the bench behind them. The rest of the story was spent interviewing various citizens on their perspectives of the ordeal. How they heard the gunshot, how some saw the Maximoff brother collapse, how they rushed to get themselves or someone who was with them someplace else. Some even described seeing the Scarlet Witch, and were not afraid to voice their concerns that she’d had a hand in instigating the chaos to begin with. 

There was no time to feel affronted by that. Not when there was nothing else about Wanda at all.

_ Just show us where she went, _Natasha thought. They had revealed Pietro was taken to the nearest hospital, but so far, there was nothing on what happened to his sister. 

The newsfeed didn’t heed Natasha’s unspoken urging. However, it did show a brief overhead shot of a bridge that was in the park itself, which had a gaping hole carved out of its side. The ravine and concrete path surrounding the hole were charred black, as if caught in a small explosion that had gone off there.

As if burned by psionic energy.

The realization made Natasha’s heart drop right into her stomach. “Fuck,” she hissed under her breath. Pepper appeared at her side, placing a hand on the spy’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Tony muttered, pressing his hand to his forehead like he couldn’t decide whether or not to cover his eyes. “This is not helping. This is not helping anything at all.”

Natasha didn’t have the mental fortitude to ask if he was referring to their already overwhelming workload or their strenuous efforts to convince the mass public that the enhanced, undocumented Sokovian twins weren’t hazards to society. She figured it was fair to presume he was referring to both. 

“I thought they weren’t supposed to leave the Tower,” the spy recalled uselessly.

“And I had a feeling they wouldn’t take that well,” Tony shot back. 

“Jarvis,” Natasha called. “Has anyone reported where Wanda is now?”

There was a beat of silence as Jarvis searched the web. Then another. Then the AI announced he would “continue looking,” and Natasha officially lost hope.

“Can’t you look up her tracking device?” Pepper asked Tony.

“I’ll have to reactivate its system,” Tony replied. “And I’m going to, if she doesn’t turn up on her own soon.”

“She has ‘til the end of the hour,” Natasha said decidedly, torn between having faith that Wanda was alright, that she could handle whatever she and her brother had gotten mixed up in, and fear that this was an echo of events that had happened last year, wherein the witch had been abducted and tortured. Where their team—their _ family _had failed to keep her safe.

The thought made Natasha even more agitated. “Where did they say Pietro was sent?”

If anyone noticed how pinched her tone had become, they didn’t speak on it. “Lady Benson Medical Center, madam,” Jarvis answered her.

“I’m going over there.” Natasha left no room for argument, immediately uprooting herself from her spot and heading towards the elevator. Fortunately, no one seemed inclined to argue with her anyways. 

“I’ll go to the attack site,” Tony announced. From the sound of it, he was only a few paces behind her. “See if I can get any more information there.”

“Tony—” Pepper began to say. Natasha, while impatiently waiting for the elevator to reach their floor, turned to see Tony gently interrupt her with a kiss to her cheek. 

“We’ll be fine,” the inventor assured his wife. “You just worry about making sure Rogers and Barnes know about this. Connection might be a little spotty if they’re still at the Hydra base, but just kept trying it.”

“OK,” Pepper said, although her shaky tone suggested she was still worried for Tony and Natasha, and the twins, and whatever had come after them. “I’ll let you know when Wanda comes home, too.”

_ When. Not if. _

Natasha tried to share that same breed of optimism. She really tried. But as the elevator finally arrived, and she and Tony boarded the steel box, both tense and practically holding their breath from anxiety, Natasha felt her gut grow heavier and heavier with her fears for the worst.

* * *

Natasha raced to the Benson Center like a woman possessed. She didn’t even have the patience to wait for Tony’s driver, Happy Hogan, to ready a car or take her there himself. While Tony took an Iron Man suit to Central Park, Natasha took Steve’s motorcycle to the hospital. And with it, she made as many illegal turns and swerves as she deemed technically safe in order to get there as fast as possible. Once she made it to the hospital, she unceremoniously left Steve’s bike right outside the entrance. Or at least, as close as the bike could get when there was a horde of people gathered around, all clambering over each other to shout questions or snap pictures at anyone who passed the other side of the steel barricades that had been set up. A few members of hospital security were there to let Natasha past said line of barricades the very second she approached.

Natasha marched up to the doors of the hospital with the unwavering apathy that had been ingrained into her within her first days in training to be the Black Widow. The crowd on the other side of the barricade erupted with fresh, raucous energy at the sight of her. Cameras flashed, and voices lobbied for her attention, demanding to know what they had no right to know. They wanted to know more about the Maximoff twins, and how they planned to utilize such powers, and how the Avengers were handling one of their own getting injured, and whether Natasha knew what had caused all of this. 

With her determination to find her injured teammate and years of experience as an unflappable spy powering her, Natasha easily tuned out the crowd as senseless white noise. However, she did notice the stark contrast there was between the hospital’s exterior and interior as she stepped into the eerie silence of the latter. There, her eyes instantly landed on a short woman with tan skin and curly hair, wearing pale pink scrubs and calmly sauntering towards the front desk of the main room. The nurse startled when she noticed Natasha striding towards her, eyes widening with the delicate awe of an admiring fan. “Oh! Miss—I mean, Black Widow—”

The spy wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries. “Maximoff. Where is he?” she demanded tersely. 

The nurse nodded, blinking rapidly to regain her professional decorum. “Of course. Right this way, ma’am.”

She turned on her heel to lead the way through a maze of corridors and hallways, their walls painted an eye-straining yellow and white. Natasha’s heart suddenly began to pound with every step, and she found it difficult to swallow as she anticipated what she would find once the nurse’s steps slowed, indicating that they were nearing the room in question. When they reached it, she turned on her heel again, this time with a palm raised at Natasha, as if sensing the spy had a gnawing desire to burst into the room with no other interruptions, and it needed to be reigned in.

“Be warned,” she stated, “he’s just gotten back from surgery, so he may not be totally coherent. There were also some abnormalities with his healing process we were concerned about—”

“What do you mean abnormalities?” Natasha interrupted, taking herself aback with how defensive her tone was.

“Just how fast things are moving along for him. None of our doctors have ever seen anything like it. By the time they first wheeled him into surgery, the wound already looked like it had been healing on its own.”

“Right, yes.” Natasha inhaled deeply, schooling herself to be as polite as possible for her next request. Given that both of the Maximoff siblings weren’t legal citizens, let alone officially recognized as the team’s responsibilities, there was no guarantee that the hospital would oblige her. “We actually have a medical team at Stark Tower that has more experience with his enhancements. Whenever possible, we would like to have him transferred to our facility for the rest of his treatment.”

The nurse stammered a bit, looking around as if searching for guidance, but there was no one else around for such support. “I don’t, um…I’ll have to consult with my supervisors about that.”

“That’s fine,” Natasha said in a hurry, unable to keep some of her anxiety and impatience from reappearing. “But may I see him now?”

“Yes, ma’am. Though I’d advise to keep it brief. Again, he’s just out of surgery. Even with enhancements, he’ll need his rest.”

“Right, of course.” 

The other woman offered a slight nod, stepping aside to allow Natasha access to the door behind her. Natasha hesitated for a second, bracing herself for anything before seizing the opportunity to finally find her younger teammate. She could feel some of her worry slip past her icy Black Widow visage, pulling her mouth into a small frown as she stepped through the threshold into the room.

The room itself was cramped, made even smaller by the amount of monitors surrounding the head of the bed at its heart. Pietro was there, his skin pale and his eyes dull as they stared drowsily ahead. Natasha’s brow furrowed as she neared his side, her own eyes taking in the troubling sight of an entire cart of morphine containers standing on the other side of his bed. There was an equal number of containers on the top and bottom shelves of the cart, with those on top each filled to the brim and those below empty. She guessed that the cart had to be brought in because of Pietro’s enhancements, which likely burned through the usual administered dose too quickly for the medical staff to keep up with. The question of how they managed to keep up with it during his actual surgery (if at all) crossed her mind uneasily.

Pietro didn’t notice her until she shut the door behind her. His head perked up at the sound, expression brightening as he recognized her (although the actual color of his face remained ghostly pale). 

“Nat…” he greeted, voice raspy and thicker than it usually was with the accent of his homeland, which he’d never quite shaken off like his sister had.

“Hi,” Natasha returned, wary of what the nurse had said about him being somewhat incoherent. Sure enough, once she was directly at his side, she could see his eyes were struggling to focus on her, and his pupils were the size of coins. “How are you feeling?”

He reached up like he wanted to wave the matter off, but was too tired to hold his hand up. “Doesn’t hurt,” he slurred. “It doesn’t hurt…”

“That’s…good,” Natasha replied awkwardly.

“They got me on this, uh…” He laughed a little. “They call it ‘happy mud.’”

“Yeah?”

He nodded, face still scrunched up in a laugh, but no sound coming out. 

Natasha watched him for a second, worried for all new reasons now. In this state, how much would he be able to accurately recall of the incident in the park? 

Her concern wasn’t enough to stop her from asking. “Pietro? Do you remember what got you here?”

It took him a second. His relaxed expression slowly melted into something more strained, clearly needing to take effort to remember despite the shooting happening only a couple of hours ago, at most. Natasha briefly worried over whether it was worth asking him now, when he was so fresh out of surgery and in need of rest to better heal from it.

Pietro’s limp fingers folded so that only the index finger remained up, pointing listlessly at the ceiling. “It came from above. Hit me right…went right through. Just through and through…”

“The bullet?”

He gave no indication he heard her. He didn’t even seem to be _ seeing _her anymore. As he went on, it became apparent that he was only repeating what he must have overheard the medics say. “Went through muscle. Out the lower back…no major damage.”

“That’s good,” Natasha repeated, staring a little at the bulge at his shoulder where thick bandaging must have been hiding beneath his hospital pajamas. _ No major damage. Doesn’t even hurt him anymore. _Those thoughts were a comfort, but only slight, given everything else. 

Apparently, Pietro wasn’t too far gone to forget about those other concerns either. “Did you find my sister?”

A knot lodged into Nat’s throat, but she managed to pretend it wasn’t there. “We were hoping you could help with that. Tony’s at the site, looking for signs of her. Where in the park did you last see her?”

Pietro pinched his eyes shut, groaning a little. When his eyes opened, there was something hard in them, like he was pushing himself to be more grounded. To overcome the effects of his painkillers so he could remember easier. “When I…I fell on the bench…she ran.”

“She _ left _ you?” Natasha was appalled. That didn’t sound like Wanda. Even in a panic, she wouldn’t run away if it meant leaving her brother behind.

“I told her to. Her and Luna…told them to get ‘em.”

That was another minor comfort, knowing that wherever Wanda had gone, she wasn’t alone. She had a familiar presence with her, even if it was a dog. “Get who, Pietro?” 

“The guy who shot me.”

Natasha thought of the news footage she had seen. The bridge that had been partially destroyed, as if eaten away by Wanda’s powers. The civilians who confirmed seeing her run back into the park, glowing an unnatural scarlet from her powers. It didn’t make sense, given there was also confirmation that the shooter had been a sniper on a neighboring building. Wanda’s powers were mental-based, so there was no way she could’ve mistaken someone else for the attacker by something like physical demeanor alone. 

Unless she found someone else was in on the attack.

Natasha grit her teeth, feeling her skin crawl at the idea of this being a group job. More people to find, to apprehend—to make sure _ paid _for threatening her team.

What if that’s where Wanda went? Did she run off, wanting to catch them herself? To exact vengeance on any and everyone who had been involved in shooting her brother, without waiting for the team as backup?

Or was she being held against her will? What if this was more akin to Wanda’s abduction last year than Natasha had originally dared to think?

“Did you see who it was?” she asked Pietro. “Who she went after? Did they…did it look like Hydra?”

Granted, their team had a mile-long list of enemies who could have tried something like this. But Hydra had the strongest connection to the twins, and the most resources to actually pull it off. 

“I didn’t see,” Pietro admitted ruefully. “Couldn’t see anything from her. She wouldn’t show me.”

That came totally out of left field. “What do you mean, ‘show you’?”

“Through our mind. Her powers…they let us see each other.”

Natasha wasn’t sure what to make of that. Given the novelty of Wanda’s powers, she supposed that was something that could be plausible, as opposed to a delusion Pietro was having while in his loopy, drugged-up state. It would certainly explain some of how intensely close the twins were, and how they were oddly efficient in communicating with each other nonverbally.

“But she wouldn’t show me,” the Maximoff brother continued. “She said she…something was going wrong with her scarlet. That’s why we left. She wasn’t feeling well, so…I wanted her to get some fresh air.”

Natasha took a minute step back, needing to process that. Something was ‘wrong’ with Wanda’s scarlet? How so? 

Her first instinct was to presume it had been capped completely, but from what they had seen from experience, Wanda would have been sick for days before this if such were the case. And if she had been that sick, her brother wouldn’t have suggested they leave the shelter of the Tower. He was too overprotective for that. _ Barnes _ was too overprotective, and wouldn’t have left for his mission without at least mentioning it to someone else on the team.

“Do you know if it came up during her physical?” Natasha asked. “If Hilda got a chance to look at it?”

“She…she knows. Hilly…” He was slurring his words again, head sagging a bit as if physically weighed down by the temptation to fall asleep. “She knows it…something’s wrong. Don’t know if…if she…knows why.”

Natasha reluctantly accepted that. Again, Wanda’s powers were a natural novelty. Even if Hilda knew her powers were acting strangely, there would be no way to know whether the medic’s theories as to what had caused it were valid unless Wanda was there for further observation.

Here and now, she could sense Pietro’s energy was spent. He looked like he had already nodded off. 

Natasha regretfully realized she had been remiss with the nurse’s instructions to mind the fact that Pietro was fresh out of surgery by interrogating him like this. She shot another wary glance at the cart of morphine on the other side of him, reminding herself how he deserved to rest before his enhanced metabolism burned through the current dosage. 

However, she knew she couldn’t leave in good conscience without taking his hand in a gesture of comfort first. “We’ll figure this out,” she promised. “If she doesn’t turn up soon, we’ll track her through the implant in her arm. Tony will make sure Hydra can’t read it.”

Pietro surprised her by mumbling something more. “Find my sister. Her and Luna…gotta find ‘em.” 

Natasha squeezed his hand. “We will. Don’t worry. Just get some rest and heal up. We’ll be back in a little while to take you home.”

He didn’t respond to that. He had officially drifted off. Natasha watched on for a restless moment, sweeping her thumb back and forth along the back of his hand. Committing to memory the sight of him, exhausted, but on the mend and anxious for them to find his sister and dog. 

The spy left the room feeling just as perturbed as she had been when she first arrived. She wandered through the hallways outside, not caring that she didn’t totally know whether she was travelling in the right direction to find the building’s exit. She was too preoccupied with fishing her phone out from her pocket, intending to call Tony and tell him that Pietro was alright, but had left them with more questions than answers. However, once she had found the device, she saw Tony had already made efforts to contact her first. She must have left the phone on silence without remembering, for she saw she had missed a call and three messages from him.

_ She’s not here. _

_ No one saw her leave. But the damage to the bridge was definitely her. _

_ Pepper got ahold of Thing 1 and 2. They’re en route back. _

Natasha thumbed at the screen, pulling up Tony’s number and readying to call him back. In the short second before she did, a new message came in. This one from Steve.

_ We’re coming home. I’m going to need your help. Bucky’s not ok. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been looking forward to this chapter. It features my favorite guest appearance (at least, until the series’ next installment)!

Bucky was rapidly discovering that this mission was entirely a waste of his time.

To be fair, he had suspected it would be since Steve first pitched it to him. With Tony and Nat’s combined skills in hacking, stealing data from Hydra’s bases seemed like something that could be done from home. It was probably safer that way, too. But Steve was convinced that the older bases, with older technology, would run the risk of slipping under the radar of Stark’s more advanced systems. And if they had information, however old and potentially outdated it was, it was better the Avengers had it, so they could be better prepared for anything the terrorist organization tried to pull. Bucky had to admit, he did agree with his friend on that much. He knew from experience that with Hydra, no idea was ever truly dismissed, and could someday be revisited when other projects failed. The incident he and Wanda faced with Andreas von Strucker the year before had revealed that even locations for operations were beginning to be recycled as well.

That’s what brought Bucky with Steve to London now. Their goal was to find a Hydra base that had presumably been abandoned years ago and physically research the data stored in its systems there. Steve claimed he wanted Bucky to go with him because, as a former asset of Hydra, Bucky was likely to know how to get into the base without tipping off anyone still working for them. The team had run a few missions like it without him before, and so far, each one had proven to still be in disuse. Bucky sensed that Steve had become confident enough with that pattern to bring Bucky along this time, figuring that it meant there would be low enough stakes for Bucky to manage it without getting triggered by his past as the Winter Soldier. The low stakes was another factor Bucky agreed with, and if he had to be reintroduced into the field with a mission, he was glad it was one like this.

But the thing was, Bucky didn’t want to be back in the field. There was always a risk something would go wrong, or something they hadn’t anticipated would come up. Bucky didn’t yet trust himself to handle that well. Especially when he and Steve were on their own. His Winter Soldier training had ingrained into him that Steve was an enemy, a target that was better off dead. If he were to be triggered on a mission like this, with just the two of them…he couldn’t predict what would happen. He didn’t even want to think about it. He wanted to rest, at home with Wanda, unbothered by the possibilities of triggers or fighting. He had felt that way since Steve first proposed the mission to him the morning he called before Bucky and Wanda left Cancún. He had wanted to tell Steve he wouldn’t go, that he didn’t _ want _ to go. He had told himself that he would try to talk his way out of it. 

But he never did. Every time he thought he was going to, the same niggling thoughts would stop him. What if he did eventually want to rejoin the field? What if he changed his mind someday, and decided he wanted to actively help the Avengers? What if he realized he wanted to do more for them than just sit by and let them take all the risks while he took shelter at their locations? What if he decided he wanted to be out there, doing everything he could to protect Steve, and Wanda, and their friends on their missions to better the world? He wasn’t sure how he was going to answer those questions, but he did know a mission as minor as this one was the least riskiest way to gauge whether he would mentally warm up to the idea.

That’s what he’d been thinking when he chose not to tell Wanda about this until the last minute. He had been torn between his desire to simply not go, and his concerns that this would be the best way to reintroduce himself to fieldwork should he someday want that life again. He hadn’t wanted to worry Wanda with the thought of him leaving for his first mission since joining the team (especially when it was one without her) when there was still a possibility he was going to try to weasel his way out of it. 

And yet, this was where he was now. Breaking into an abandoned building that once served as a cover for Hydra operations in Chalk Farm, London, and bearing the growing suspicion that he was more worried about Wanda than she was for him. Since he and Steve had left the Tower, all of Bucky’s concerns for how the mission could possibly go south became replaced by thoughts of Wanda, and how he had left things with her. Once in Chalk Farm, he led the way through the backroads and into the building they needed, getting through its still functioning security tech through the use of door passcodes and other tricks stored somewhere in the deep recesses of Bucky’s memory. He applied his memory of how to navigate the Hydra base (or at least, those that were structured like it; he was still uncertain if he had been to this one, in particular, before) with his mind still far from what he was physically doing. His mind was still in his and Wanda’s bedroom at Stark Tower, listening to her anxiously ramble around those few words that changed everything.

_ I’m pregnant, James. _

The words echoed in the loud _ clang _of Bucky ripping the door to the base’s control center partially off its hinges, allowing both super-soldiers to slip past the opening that appeared between it and the counterpart beside it. Steve wasted no time heading towards the nearest computer, sitting at the end of a table full of them. The models were old, but started up surprisingly fast for Steve as he sat down and began searching for the information it held, pausing only briefly to take a flashdrive from his pocket and plug it into the monitor. 

As Steve worked, Bucky stayed by the door, looking around as if he was on watch for any other intruders that may come their way. But in reality, he was actually back in his own head, wrestling with his thoughts. 

How had he not noticed something was different? Why was he only now, while he was stuck in a stuffy, underground computer lab far away from her, realizing there had been signs pointing to changes in Wanda’s body? She had been sleeping more. She had been more physically needy, snuggling up to him or holding his hand every moment she could, even outside the privacy of their home. Certain parts of her had seemed more sensitive whenever they made love. She had gotten sick when her immune system should have been impervious to common food poisoning.

_ If I had known this was possible, I would have said something. I promise. But I was always told…I guess no one at Hydra ever thought I would… _

Wanda had told him that. And while he trusted she sincerely believed that, he didn’t think that he did. Not that she would have told him if she had thought it was physically possible for her to conceive—that, he did believe. But what he wasn’t convinced about—what _ terrified _ him—was the prospect that Hydra _ did _know it would happen. Or had at least thought about it. The fear came from another memory that had been haunting him over the past several hours. Another voice echoing in his mind, from where Andreas von Strucker had laid bleeding to death before him at a burning building not unlike the very base Bucky was standing in now.

_ You can’t keep her from us. Not her, not her brother. Not any children you have with her. _

In the grand scheme of things, Andreas von Strucker wasn’t an adversary Bucky thought about often. He hadn’t been a very intimidating person; just narcissistic, and given too much power due to his father’s legacy at Hydra. Not to mention he had been confirmed killed in the destruction of his base of operations. The threat itself wasn’t one Bucky took very seriously. He figured Hydra would still be interested in someday reclaiming the Maximoff twins, but Andreas, himself, would no longer be able to do anything about it. 

But the fact that Andreas even thought to mention children between Bucky and Wanda…did that mean someone else at Hydra had discussed it with him? Did anyone else at Hydra consider it a possibility, something the rest of the organization could act on? They had been the ones to try to sterilize Wanda in the first place. Perhaps Andreas had told the rest of them that he had observed a relationship forming between their former assets. If he had mentioned that connection, it wasn’t too far-fetched to believe that others at Hydra would piece together that _ something _could come from it. Especially given the knowledge Hydra kept on how Bucky and Wanda’s physiologies were affected by the end of their respective experimentations. 

Which meant this kid, whose parents only just found out was a possibility to conceive, already had a target on their back. 

And in Bucky’s eyes, that was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The threat of Hydra again targeting him, or Wanda and her brother, had been a fairly constant concern of his already. But what was of arguably greater concern was the damage they had already done to him. The threat _ he _posed to his family as a consequence. His mind was still not entirely his, and he had the capacity to be triggered into another episode that reduced him to his Winter Soldier training. He had already hurt Wanda because of it. He’d shot her. He’d been aiming for her heart when he did. He had never stopped carrying that with him, how much he had hurt her. How close he had come to losing her because of his loss of self-control. And he hadn’t stopped carrying the fear of recreating such an incident, either. Lately, it had become his most frequent nightmare. It was by a slow, but sure process that he learned to accept Wanda wasn’t afraid of him. That she understood how much he struggled with himself, and was willing to put in the effort to care for him, to be there for him as he healed. 

A kid wouldn’t understand any of that. They would need to be taken care of themselves, and he wasn’t complete enough to be that parent they needed. He was still so broken…

He knew Wanda would try to argue the same about herself. But to him, that was just absurd. Sure, she had her baggage, too, but she was still able to function with it. She was still willing to train and fight for the Avengers despite it. She was still willing to _ live _in spite of it. She could adapt to something like this. She would be great at it, if the way she interacted with Barton’s kids at Stark’s wedding was any indication. And the way she talked about them afterward, how affectionately she spoke when she told him how she first met them after the Battle of Sokovia, before she met him…he couldn’t help but wonder if she wanted children of her own. He had tried to ask her when he last saw her, but she only said she hadn’t thought about it. That she was satisfied with what she already had, with what she apparently needed, which was only him and Pietro. 

But that hadn’t answered his question. He was yet to know if she _wanted _this. If, for just once, she would allow herself to be selfish, and disregard what effect it would have him, and consider what she well and truly wanted. And if it was this…he couldn’t hold her back from that. He wanted her to have whatever she wanted—_everything _she wanted, even if he was too dangerous to be a part of it.

He would have to leave. 

Where he would go, or what he would do, or how he would keep himself hidden without the protection of the Avengers, he didn’t know. He didn’t know how he would live without the support system he had built from Wanda, and Steve, and the therapist Stark had brought in. He didn’t even know how he would make himself leave after he’d gotten so attached to Wanda. But he figured he would have to try. He knew he would have to, if it meant she would be safe and happy… 

“Bucky?”

Steve’s voice instantly brought him out of his reverie. He looked up, a little taken aback to find he had started to half-lean, half-slump against the metal frame of the door he had left askew on its damaged hinges. Steve was standing behind the chair at the computer he’d been using, subtly drifting closer to his friend. Bucky only stood up straighter, regarding Steve with his best impassive expression.

“You OK?” Steve asked. “You look kind of pale.”

Bucky shook his head, looking away to hide whatever Steve was seeing in his face. “It’s fine.”

Steve didn’t buy that for one second. “Do you wanna step outside? I know I, for one, am sweating my ass off in here.”

Bucky knew better than to believe his friend was truly concerned about how he was feeling from the heat (though that was a fair concern, given how many layers Bucky had piled on to hide his metal arm from the civilians they had to pass on their way here). For all of Steve’s confidence that Bucky could handle being in the field again, at least for something as minor as this, he wasn’t totally ignorant to the fact Bucky was vulnerable to being triggered by something in the base, regardless of how empty and disused it had become. 

But that wasn’t anywhere near what had gotten Bucky so upset. Not that he could tell Steve the truth. In a way, it still didn’t feel real enough for him to talk about with someone else. He wanted to keep it between him and Wanda, at least until he knew she was comfortable with the rest of the team knowing. Then it would be real. Then it _ could _ be real. 

“It’s fine,” Bucky repeated, perhaps a little too coldly. It probably didn’t help how he crossed his arms over his chest as he turned away. 

“This is almost finished downloading,” Steve promised. “We’ll be outta here and on our way home real soon.”

Bucky only nodded, still slightly caught up in his own head. Normally, he would be relieved at the prospect of going home, especially from a site that had Hydra all over it. Yet now, he was anxious from the idea. The thought of going home now meant resuming his conversation with Wanda. It meant determining how the pregnancy was going to affect their lives. How Bucky may have to leave. 

“Unless…” 

Bucky turned back to face Steve when his friend began to say something more. Steve was halfway between him and the desk of computers now, his head low and both hands on his utility belt. “I was kind of wondering—if you’re up for it, of course—if we could maybe take a detour further into the city.”

He paused to pull out his phone from his pocket, checking the time. “I guess at this hour, it would make more sense to find somewhere to stop and rest for the night. But I was hoping to stop somewhere else in the morning, so—and again, it’s only if you’re alright with—”

“No, yeah,” Bucky cut in. “That’s fine by me.”

“Yeah?” Steve shifted, looking sincerely surprised by that. “You’re up for it?”

“Sure. Whatever you want. I’m just following you.” 

That wasn’t entirely true. Steve was a good leader, but Bucky couldn’t delude himself. The reason he was so open to “a detour” was for nothing other than having an excuse to put off going home and facing Wanda. Of having that dreaded conversation.

God, he was a coward.

“OK then,” Steve said, seemingly oblivious to his friend’s inner turmoil. He turned around to go back to standing directly before the computer screen, checking the progress of the loading bar before he removed the flashdrive from its side. “We can start heading out…” He clicked a few buttons, prompting the computer to shut down. “Now.”

He crossed the space between them, patting Bucky’s shoulder with an encouraging, “Let’s go,” as he passed him. Bucky let Steve take the lead this time as they retraced their steps throughout the base, making their way to the stairs leading up to the ground floor and then to the back door of the overall building. 

Steve continued to lead the way as the two soldiers travelled through the streets of Chalk Farm. This time, they went through the county rather than sticking to backroads and alleys, which did feed Bucky’s anxiety a little. Fortunately, though, the hour was late enough that most of the other people around them weren’t paying them much attention, being too concerned about either getting home or getting drunk at one of the many pubs there. The soldiers passed by the subway station that would take them to the countryside where their quinjet was hidden, causing Bucky’s stomach to turn a little as they deviated from their previously determined plan. He internally chastised himself for it immediately afterward, for being so indecisive over whether he would rather be at home or out with Steve a while longer. 

They stopped at seemingly the first hotel Steve spotted. A quaint, humble little place right on the corner of the street. Bucky waited outside as Steve checked them in, self-consciously pulling on the leather glove that hid his metal hand as people passed him on the sidewalk. He ventured inside only when Steve came to get him, following close behind his friend until they reached their designated room. The room was tiny, barely big enough for the two beds and nightstand there, let alone two brawny enhanced soldiers. The bedspreads and carpeting were both a deep crimson colour, reminding Bucky of Wanda’s field uniform. 

He sank onto the bed nearest him with a heavy heart. Even with a difficult conversation waiting for him, he couldn’t deny that he missed Wanda’s company. Perhaps he should have been expecting as much after the past several months had been spent cooped up in the same building as her, making her presence a constant to him. Spending a night without her was going to be an adjustment.

“You sure you’re OK?” Steve checked, already ridding himself of his civilian jacket and shirt, leaving him in his undershirt and trousers. His uniform, along with Bucky’s, were still stored on the jet with the rest of their supplies. Hidden away so that the soldiers could travel the heavily civilian-populated area inconspicuously. They had each only brought a glock with them (and Bucky, the hand knife he still carried from his days at Hydra), which Steve pulled from where it was tucked in the back of his pants and left on the nightstand between the two beds. “You’ve been even more quiet than usual. Was there something back there you wanna talk—”

“No,” Bucky interrupted, grimacing as his tone came across colder than intended yet again. He curled his fingers into the bed fabric around him, watching the dark red material bunch up at his sides. “It’s nothin’ you gotta worry about. I just…just got caught up feelin’ homesick, I guess.”

Steve nodded his understanding, though it was difficult to discern if he was truly convinced by that. The next item he shedded from his person was his phone. “Yeah, well…let’s see if they’re thinking of us over there, too.”

He began to walk around Bucky’s bed, eyeing the phone screen in his hand. “I don’t trust Tony to be awake,” he said in a weak attempt to lighten the mood. “Two a.m.? Pepper probably cut off his work time two hours ago. Or at least tried to.”

When he was right in front of the door to the bathroom, Steve added more seriously, “I’m gonna call Nat. I’ll be in here if you want some quiet for your own call.”

Steve didn’t wait for a response. He slipped into the bathroom with his phone pressed to his ear, gently closing the door behind him. 

For a long while, Bucky simply sat frozen in his place, staring listlessly ahead. He could feel the weight of his own phone in his pocket like it was made of lead. Eventually, it became too much, and he pulled it out to stare at the blank screen instead. Steve had made it sound so natural, like the act of phoning home to let their respective sweethearts know they were alright was common nature. At two in the morning, though, Bucky didn’t think Wanda would be awake. Not based on how quickly her energy had been getting burnt out lately.

_ Because she’s pregnant_.

Bucky swallowed uneasily. He didn’t want to bother her. She needed the rest. And she certainly deserved some space from him, seeing how he was the one who knocked her up to begin with.

God, if his ma were still around, she would box his ears for this. Hell, she was probably rolling in her grave right now. From what he could remember of his old life, before Hydra (back when he’d been _ normal_), his mother had been very set in her traditional ways. And very vocal about it, too. When he was young, Bucky had gone on his fair share of dates, and never once did his mother neglect to pull him aside beforehand and remind him to keep it in his pants. This entire situation was just another mark of distance he had to his old self.

Bucky eyed his phone again, tempted to at least message something that Wanda could read when she woke up. Just to let her know that he was fine, and he would be back the next day. That he loved her. He couldn’t remember if he’d even told her that in person when he originally left home. Had he even said good-bye?

He could say it now.

The realization that he was essentially alone at the moment struck him like a rush of ice water over the head. Steve was in the bathroom. That meant he wouldn’t notice if Bucky slipped out the door right now. If he walked outside and disappeared into the crowds of London like the ghost he was once known to be. He could do it right now. He could leave, never to bother Wanda and her brother and their family with _ anything _ ever again. To keep their lives from being weighed down any longer by the darkness shrouding his own.

He choked on his next breath, suddenly flooded with guilt and shame for even thinking such a thing. Wanda had already lost so much. Leaving her with merely a final message from him would just be cruel. Especially now, when it was still possible he was wrong, and she didn’t want children. With him or with anyone. If that were the case, she would need him to be there for her, to help her navigate getting out of the situation he had put her in. And if she did want them, then he owed her a proper farewell before he left her to it. _ And _he wanted additional assurance that she would have sufficient protection under the care of Pietro and the Avengers. 

_ You can’t keep her from us. Not her, not any children you have with her. _The threat still lurked in the back of his mind.

Bucky abruptly stood up, moving around to reach the other side of the bed. He dropped his phone on the nightstand, beside Steve’s glock. Then he pulled out his own gun, depositing it on the small wooden surface as well. He also proceeded to rid himself of his gloves, his hoodie, and his overshirt. His movements were noticeably tense and robot-like, doing nothing to hide how distressed he was. Distressed over being away from Wanda, about going back to her. Distressed over how everything was about to change, no matter what they decided to do. Over how many unknowns were in their future. 

The floor board uttered a slight groan, signaling Steve’s return. “Nat’s…chipper,” he reported, his dry tone making it obvious Natasha was actually anything but. “Guess it’s too early in the morning for her.”

Bucky didn’t respond. He only sat on the surface of his bed again, idly staring at his phone. Steve set his own down beside it, sinking onto the surface of the second bed across from Bucky. In his peripheral, Bucky noticed his friend lean forward a bit, as if to continue a conversation Bucky was in no mood to have. 

“What’d Wanda say?”

“Nothing. I think she’s asleep,” Bucky said semi-honestly, omitting the fact that he hadn’t even tried her. 

“She’s doin’ OK, right? I don’t think we ever saw her at dinner.”

Bucky felt a knot lodge in his throat. How could he answer that? Did he even know if Wanda was OK? He still didn’t know if children were something she wanted. When he’d seen her, she hadn’t even seemed concerned with what she wanted until he brought it up. She’d been too concerned with what he thought. She had sounded _ scared _to tell him. And why? Did she think he would just up and leave the very moment she told him? Was she still afraid of that? Had he left her in a state of fear, believing he wasn’t going to come back?

The thought made his moment of temptation seconds earlier feel even heavier on his shoulders.

“She’s, uh…” Bucky tried to cover his uncertainty by running his flesh hand through his hair. “I think she’s got a lot on her mind.”

“Seems like you do, too.”

Bucky shook his head, already knowing what was coming next. “We’re fine, Stevie.”

“Are you?”

Bucky finally looked up, somehow able to meet his friend’s calm but troubled gaze that was boring into him. However, the former sergeant couldn’t help but fidget a little under the heat of it, wringing his hands where they had been previously resting on his knees.

_ Wanda’s pregnant. _ He still couldn’t bring himself say it out loud, much less to Steve. It wasn’t his place. Only Wanda knew who she wanted to tell. That left a very uncomfortable silence between him and Steve, with the latter too patient for his own good as he waited for Bucky to admit _ something _about what was bothering him. Bucky mentally scrambled to find something he could offer, knowing there was no way Steve would let him just drop it. 

Bucky clenched his jaw in apprehension before hesitantly opening his mouth to voice his next thought. “If anything happened…if I…if I wasn’t…_around _anymore, at the Tower…you would take care of her, right? You and the team? And you would make sure she took care of herself, too?”

He knew he didn’t need to ask. He knew Steve and his team had already been looking after Wanda before Bucky ever came into her life. They had first taken her under their wing during one of the lowest points of her life, right after the Battle of Sokovia, after she had been separated from her brother, believing he had been killed in the fight. The Avengers were good to her.

Still, he wanted a reminder.

Steve, on the other hand, only furrowed his brow in a perturbed expression. “Why’re you thinking like that?”

The other soldier sighed shortly. “I just am.”

“Wait—are you plannin’ to do something? Is this about those guys that want to investigate Wanda? Because taking her place won’t make ‘em forget about her.”

Bucky faltered. He hadn’t even thought about that. Ever since images leaked to the press of the destruction Wanda had brought to the Avengers’ Facility last year, when she snapped from the torture Hydra put her through, several government officials—even as high up the ladder as the Secretary of State, Thaddeus Ross—had been lobbying to have her deemed a threat to society and apprehended by federal authorities to have God-knows-what done to her. In spite of Steve’s words against it, Bucky couldn’t help but wonder if it _ was _possible to get their attention off of Wanda by coming forward. Maybe even get them to dismiss the accusations of her being a threat altogether by explaining that she had only snapped because she had been trying to protect him and her brother when Hydra went after them next. Would they be satisfied with him serving detention in her place? What if that’s where he went while she had the baby? 

His consideration must have been palpable, for Steve stood up in alarm. “Buck, c’mon. She needs you at home. It won’t help any if you—”

“I know,” Bucky cut in just to calm his friend. “I know. Don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking anything like that. I just ask because…I just wanted to know. I…I get worried, you know?”

Steve let out an uneasy breath. He stepped forward, eyes roving over Bucky as if to gauge whether or not he was lying. Then he took another step towards the former sergeant, turning to sit directly next to him on the bed. 

“Yeah, I know you do,” he conceded. “But you shouldn’t have to. Nothing’s gonna happen to take you or her from each other’s side. We’ll make sure of it. That’s what we do. We look out for our own.”

Bucky gave a listless nod, feeling a fresh wave of guilt sweep over him. Steve sounded so confident in his ability to keep the team together against outside happenings. How was he supposed to break it to his friend that Bucky, himself, was considering leaving? That he was beginning to think Wanda would be safer without him? Safe, away from the darkness and enemies that came with him, so that she could raise their kid in peace?

Steve grabbed his shoulder, shaking him a little. “And in answer to your question, if it really worries you, of course we’d take care of her. Even if you weren’t there, or if Pietro wasn’t, or if nobody asked us to. We love her, too. So, she’s stuck with us.”

Bucky half-smiled, feeling the warmth of sincere comfort settle into his chest at that. 

With a final pat on his friend’s shoulder, Steve stood up. 

“And so are you, pal,” he added lightly as he strode over to the over the side of the room and killed the lights. The room immediately because awash with darkness, with sparse bulbs of light shining from distant places outside the window on the other side of Steve’s bed. However, that was hardly a deterrent to soldiers with enhanced senses. Steve easily found his way back to the second bed and flopped onto it with his full weight, causing the springs to softly creak. “Get some rest, Buck. We’ll head out at first light tomorrow. Take the train to our next stop, and then head back the other way to go home.”

Bucky stayed silent, feeling a touch of his previous unease at deviating from their originally determined plan rise again. The mixture of anxieties, for both going home and being away, coiled together in his belly. He trusted Steve. Or more particularly, he trusted Wanda, and her insistence the last time they spoke that if Steve was asking him to go somewhere, it had to be for a good reason. 

With is mind still troubled, Bucky inched backward and shifted so that he could lie supine on top of the bed. He had to consciously remind himself to stop thinking, to empty his mind so that he could get some rest and have the energy to be of use to whatever Steve wanted to do tomorrow. His head sank into the pillow, putting him at a physical discomfort with how unaccustomed he was to its overly pliable shape. It was like sleeping on a marshmallow. He pulled it out from under his head and set it aside on the other half of the bed. Then, after only a few seconds, he pulled it right back to him, tucking it to press against his side to mask the noticeable absence of Wanda’s body there. It wasn’t the same, of course, being too small and cool and lightweight to be mistaken for her curling up against him, but it was better than nothing, at least.

Eventually, he did manage to nod off. He didn’t remember how or when. But he did remember dreaming. He remembered feeling lost, despite being confined to a small dimly-lit space, unable to venture any further through the unfamiliar landscape. And he remembered feeling _ cold_. An agonising cold settled over his form, sinking its sharp, frigid touch into his skin. Freezing his breath into a cloud of vapor with every vain attempt to utter a grounding exhale. It made his mind return to memories he didn’t want to revisit. Memories of a frozen chamber. Of being stored away like an inhuman possession, forced to miss out on a life he didn’t even want until his captors needed him for something.

“_James!_”

He jolted at the cry of his name. _ Wanda. _ He wanted to whirl around to search for her, to call back to her, but to his horror, he found he could barely move. His joints were stiff, like they were too frozen to obey him. Like he was being frozen alive.

_ No! _ he thought. _ Find Wanda! Find her! _

As difficult as it was, he made himself turn around, hyper-aware of how slow and lethargic his movements were despite his sense of urgency. As he did, a shadow fell over him, obscuring what little light there was. It grabbed at him, pushing him, clearly trying to force him back into place. He fought back as best he could, which manifested as merely jerking his arms out of reach. 

“_James!_”

The scream seemed to renew his strength, allowing him to twist enough to see what was behind him. His adversary kept pushing him, pressing hard against his frost-coated metal limb, forcing him onto his knees out of fear of resisting too much causing the limb to crack or break altogether. He looked up to snarl at his captor, to demand they release Wanda when they already had him, but the desperate words were lost to him when he saw that face. _His _face. It was partially obscured by a mask—the same mask he used to wear when he was sent on missions as the Winter Soldier—but his eyes were unmistakable. They were so blue, as icy as the air around them. And they were so _empty_, alight with nothing more than the drive to get an objective completed. To please handlers that were hiding elsewhere, who would torture him if he didn’t obey them.

He heard another scream, this time too distraught to resemble his name, or any sort of word. God, she sounded so scared. Were they hurting her? Had _ he _ hurt her? This version of himself that he couldn’t control. This version of himself that had shot her in the chest before. This version of him that was still _ him_.

The Winter Soldier pressed more firmly against him, driving his knee against Bucky’s back and forcing him to lay flat on the ground. The floor was like ice, sending a fresh chill over his form. He gasped at the impact, allowing the frosty air to slip into his next breath, washing his throat and lungs with a similar cold. He was so cold, all over. Freezing alive in the cryo-chamber. Freezing from _ fear _ as he was forced into the frost, still without knowing what had become of his sweetheart. Without knowing where _ any _ of his loved ones were, or what would become of him when he was woken up. 

_ Just find Wanda. _He had to at least get her somewhere safe. He owed her that much for dragging her back into this life. For letting this version of himself hurt her.

No…this wasn’t real. The Winter Soldier didn’t exist separately from him. _ This isn’t real! _

He sucked in another large breath, ushering a fresh chill into his system. It seized his lungs, making it difficult to breathe. He pushed with all his might to escape, pressing against the weight bearing down on top of him. The plates in his metal arm twitched as they tried to shift from the strain despite being covered in ice. _ This isn’t real! It’s not real! _

With a final gasp, Bucky’s eyes opened and a warm breath finally rushed into his throat. Seconds later, he was scrambling to sit up, another chill of fright spiking his blood as he found himself in a room he didn’t recognize, with the question of _ where’s Wanda _ still fresh in his mind. He panted several times, squeezing fistfuls of crimson fabric on either side of him as he sluggishly processed the sight of the environment around him. Plain white plaster walls. Deep red curtains on either side of a window, framing bright, albeit cloud-covered light. A lumpy mattress beneath him, with springs that creaked at the slightest movement. A matching bed beside it, the covers rumpled enough to expose the clean white sheets beneath it. A simple, tiny, _ harmless _hotel room. An air conditioning unit sat beneath the window, humming noisily as it worked, which explained the chill in the air. The room was cold, but it wasn’t extreme enough to cryogenically freeze him.

He was OK. He was on a mission with Steve. 

Wanda was OK. She was safe at home.

He turned to see his StarkPhone was still on the nightstand where he had left it. His hand twitched on its own accord, urging him to pick up the phone and check on Wanda. To see how she was feeling. Physically and emotionally, both in regards to herself, and to him, since he had gotten her pregnant. Since he had thrown the entire, tentatively comfortable way of life they had built together into question.

The recollection of their relationship falling into that questionable state crept uneasily into his heart, in perfect sync with his fingers wrapping around the phone and bringing it into his lap. He stared uselessly at the device, contemplating what sort of message he should send under those circumstances. 

He didn’t get long to think it over. The door beside him opened, and Steve stepped out, drying his hands with a white hand towel. His eyes immediately landed on Bucky, expression brightening with relief. “Oh, good. You’re up.”

After tossing the towel back into the washroom, Steve made his way over to his bed and began picking up his civilian clothes from the day before. “We both overslept. We’re gonna have to hurry if we still want to go into the city and be back home before nightfall.”

Bucky finally thumbed on his phone to check the time. It was only a few minutes past 10 a.m., but at this time of year, daylight was lasting for a shorter period of time than usual. Given how long it would take simply to travel back to where they left their quinjet, and however long it would take to complete whatever side-task Steve had in mind, Bucky knew he was right.

The former sergeant inched to the very edge of the bed, also reaching for his layers of civilian clothing off the floor. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep that long.”

“Hey, I just got up myself.” After a beat, Steve added with a snort, “Guess our ages are catchin’ up to us, huh?”

“Maybe,” Bucky agreed noncommittally, still eyeing the phone in one of his hands. Ultimately, he decided to forego the check-in altogether, if for nothing else than to avoid Steve asking him again about how things were going between him and Wanda. He carefully tossed the phone aside and stood up to take his own turn at the washroom facilities. “You sure this detour is worth it?” 

“Sure it is. You trust me, right?”

Bucky shook his head, even though he was already in the next room, where Steve couldn’t see him. “Sometimes, I do.”

“Only sometimes?”

“Yeah. Other times, you tend to be kind of a punk.”

A moment of silence passed after that. At first, Bucky thought Steve simply hadn’t heard him. But then he considered Steve’s enhanced senses, as well as how small the overall hotel room was. Even with the door closed, that didn’t seem likely. 

Soon enough, Steve did respond. He sounded close, like he had moved near the door. “Yeah, well you’re a jerk. You know that?”

* * *

They travelled well into the heart of the city of London. The area was twice as crowded as Chalk Farm, which Bucky saw as both a blessing and a curse. More people meant the chances of being noticed and recognized were higher, but it also meant that it would be easier to hide in such an event. As they weaved through foot traffic on the sidewalks, Bucky tried not to worry on risks too much, so that his focus could be better trained on simply keeping Steve within his line of sight. It was a relief to see that at least Steve was confident in where they were going, and how they were getting there. He even seemed eager about it, walking in front of Bucky at an impatient pace (though obviously curbing his full speed to maintain their cover as average men exploring the city). 

Eventually, they reached a large building that caused Steve to slow down once he caught sight of it. He stopped at the base of the concrete steps that led up to the veranda running along the building’s front. At first glance, it looked like another hotel, not unlike the one they had stayed in overnight. Though Bucky soon caught sight of the red and white lettering perched above the central window. 

_ Simon Care Home. _

Bucky studied the lettering, not quite processing what it meant. Or processing that of all places, Steve would bring them here, to a retirement village. What could they need from here? The building itself looked new, so it was hard to imagine it had once been a cover for some other goings on. 

In his confusion, Bucky nearly missed the fact that Steve had begun moving again. He hurried to return to his place right at Steve’s side, walking with him to and through the building’s main entrance. There was a front desk there to greet them, with one lone woman with dark skin and a violet headscarf clicking tirelessly at the computer. Bucky hung back as Steve approached her, pretending to be distracted by something out the window behind them, so she wouldn’t see his face and potentially recognize him. As he feigned disinterest, he still overheard some of Steve’s conversation with her. 

“Oh, yes!” the young woman exclaimed at whatever Steve told her. Her voice was quiet and airy. “She’s been expecting you. You’ve caught her at a good time. Her daughter will be here soon, as well.”

When Bucky glanced back in Steve’s direction, he saw Steve turning around to face him, too. Steve nodded him, gesturing for him to come with him as he began to step towards a hall to their left. Bucky obliged, closing the space between them and easily falling into step beside his friend. He chanced a look at the receptionist, to gauge her reaction to him, but she seemed to have eyes only for Steve, watching him in adortion. Bucky lost sight of her once they were in the hallway, bringing his focus back to Steve and where they could possibly be going. Someone was expecting Steve? Did that mean getting this done (whatever it was) was more important to the mission than Steve had originally led on? Why brush it off as an innocent detour, then?

Faintly, Bucky could hear Steve beginning to count the room numbers they passed out loud. 

“Sorry,” Steve said after a while. “First time here. I’m not as used to it. And I didn’t think it would be so much bigger than the one in DC.”

“DC?” Bucky questioned curiously.

“Yeah. Her daughter moved her here to be closer to her. Especially as things around DC kind of…”

Steve’s pace slowed, and his voice grew quieter. “And things with SHIELD got so…y’know.”

Bucky only nodded, picking at the edges of the plates in his metal hand with the other, despite having on leather gloves that repressed proper contact between them. His and Steve’s last endeavor together in Washington DC was one of Bucky’s clearest memories from his time under Hydra. It was the first mission where his mind wasn’t wiped afterward, for the fallout had been big enough for him to finally escape the group’s hold altogether. Although in the process of remembering he was capable of having his own agency—that he’d once had an entire life outside of Hydra—he had nearly killed Steve. Killing Captain America had been the actual purpose of his mission at the time, and he’d nearly succeeded, having beaten Steve so brutally while Steve tried to get through to him. It was another act of the Winter Soldier that Bucky constantly carried with him. Another burdensome weight on his shoulders, just like everything else he could remember of his past missions. Just like his shooting Wanda when he tried to help her rescue her brother from Hydra. 

He couldn’t stand to think of any of that now. He’d already torn himself up enough with all the reasons he was a threat to the family he had. To any family he _ would _have. It felt like that was where his mind had been ever since leaving New York the day before. He knew if Wanda were there, regardless of how she felt about him getting her pregnant, she would be able to sense the ceaseless turmoil, and urge him to not be so hard on himself. At least, not this consistently. If Bucky truly was going to live on his own soon, he would have to be better about practicing that cognitive redirection without her there to prompt him.

Steve patted his shoulder in sympathy for the memory of DC, holding his hand there in comfort as they continued to walk down the long corridor. The journey felt even longer with the knowledge that the building was unfamiliar to both of them. Eventually, they reached the end of the hall, which led to a fork in their path leading both left and right. A sign spelled out which direction led to which numbered rooms and facilities. Steve led them through another left turn, this one leading to a wide window that showed some of the residents milling about. They were halfway to said window when Steve suddenly stopped, lifting his hand from Bucky’s shoulder to indicate he should halt too. Bucky obeyed, watching as Steve approached a room on the right hand wall. The door was partially ajar, with a label posted beside its frame that read _ 211 _ and beneath it a name tag, _ Margaret. _

“Give me a minute,” Steve whispered to his friend as he carefully pushed the door open further and slipped through. Bucky followed as far as the door, leaning against the doorframe on the opposite side of the room label. As he waited for Steve, his gloved flesh fingers continued their mindless picking at the plates of his equally gloved metal hand. There was no rational reason to be anxious. No one else was wandering the hall at the moment. Steve clearly knew what he was doing, and the person he was meeting with had been expecting him. Still, Bucky’s apprehension from everything else going on was apparently too strong to loosen its hold on him.

Steve didn’t take long. After just a few minutes, he emerged from the room with an expression of complacency painted on his face. “She wants to talk to you.” 

In spite of Steve’s easy visage, that sentence made Bucky nervous. He still wasn’t sure what this was all about, let alone who they were here to meet. What was he walking into?

But he could practically hear Steve’s unspoken encouragement to go ahead, to just trust him. And he was lucky Bucky did. 

Steve held the door open as Bucky passed him to enter the room. Then he closed it back to the partial amount it had been at before. Meanwhile, Bucky took another cautious step further inside, his brow furrowing as his eyes landed on the woman lying in the slightly inclined bed before him. Her hands were folded over her abdomen, where the edge of a taupe blanket covered her. She had thick, silver hair that fanned out in waves around her head. Her eyes were staring idly at the collection of photos and books sitting on the nightstand beside her bed. Those eyes turned to him when he stepped closer, not quite focusing, but still sharp with a lifetime of intelligence behind them. Eyes that, upon meeting his, filled him with a sudden rush of recognition. He couldn’t explain how, but he knew her.

And she knew him, too. “Sergeant Barnes,” she greeted, voice husky with age but still somehow lulling as well, with its delicate English accent. “There you are.”

Hearing his name from that voice slotted the final piece of puzzlement into place within his mind. He could feel his face fall slack with realization, with the completion of his memory of her.

_ Margaret_…that was her name, but that wasn’t how he knew her. 

“Agent Carter.”

_ Peggy. _That was what he’d meant, but he wasn’t sure if he was in the right place to address her by that name. So many of his crimes as the Winter Soldier, those atrocities that had been haunting him all throughout this very day, had originally been for the purpose to combat her actions as the founder of SHIELD. Her efforts to instill goodwill and protection to the world through the half of the organization that was free of Hydra’s corruption. The half of SHIELD that would eventually house the Avengers Initiative, which would create the team Bucky was currently taking shelter with. Where his best friend and his sweetheart both found a home in a world they no longer understood. 

Bucky felt his heart pound. It didn’t feel right for him to be here. He felt _ unworthy _ to be here, facing her while carrying the history he had of secretly furthering Hydra’s agenda within the ranks of her organization.

However, Peggy didn’t seem to feel the same way. Her smile only grew, and her hand slid off her stomach to pat the space next to her. “Come here,” she implored. “Have a seat.”

Bucky swallowed dryly, not moving for a moment. His hesitation couldn’t have lasted more than a few heartbeats before Peggy became insistent. “Come on. I’m not afraid of you.”

Again, he seemed to be compelled by some force he couldn’t explain. This time, he complied to the former agent’s gentle request, and brought himself closer. Near the door was a chair and dresser, the former of which he pulled with him to the other side of the room, setting it down directly at her bedside.

As Bucky sank into his seat, Peggy went on, “Steve told me you were coming. And how long you’d been away.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what was meant by that. How long he’d been away from Steve? How long they had both been away from her? Or how long they’d been away from home, to be here and visit her? He supposed it didn’t truly matter (although he did have a growing suspicion that this was the actual reason Steve had pressed so much for Bucky to accompany him on this particular mission, in this particular area). Bucky could recognize when someone wasn’t entirely sure themselves due to a faulty memory of things in general. He’d seen it in the mirror often enough.

“Yeah, I…I guess it’s been a while,” he replied awkwardly.

Peggy hummed, her eyes (which, at this closer angle, Bucky could see were the same pretty hickory colour he vaguely remembered from the past) flitting up and down his form. “Still such a good soldier,” she commented softly. Belatedly, Bucky noticed her gaze was lingering on his arms in particular. “Steve told me what they did to you. How much they took from you…”

Bucky squirmed under her knowing gaze. It was becoming increasingly evident that no amount of age or dementia had diminished how perceptive she was.

“May I see it?” she asked in a tentative whisper. “The one they forced on you?”

The former sergeant followed her gaze to his arm, tucking it closer to his side as a new wave of self-consciousness and unworthiness surged up within him. 

“It’s alright, love,” Peggy assured. “It can’t be any worse than my neighbor, Flo’s hip.”

That made Bucky chuckle. Maybe it was more due to nerves than anything else, but it made Peggy laugh along with him, which he could feel loosen the unease that had knotted up at his chest. He savored the moment, revelling in that light-heartedness long enough to gather the courage he needed to be able to lift his metal hand back into her line of sight, peeling his leather glove off as he did. The grey plates glinted dully beneath the lights overhead, but there was no mistaking it wasn’t his natural arm. It didn’t even look close to the flesh limb he’d had when Peggy knew him during the war. The one that had fought Nazis at their camps, and raided their bases, and fired a sniper rifle on their mobs, all under her orders—as well as the rest of their colleagues—during that war.

He didn’t know what reaction he was expecting her to have to the artificial limb. The one ‘forced on him,’ as she’d put it. But her actual reaction was barely anything at all. She made only a single, barely-audible sound as she stared at it, the sound akin to a distressed gasp. But there was no trace of fear or offense. There wasn’t even apprehension as she reached for his hand with her own, which even Wanda had expressed at first. Granted, that had been from concern of making him uncomfortable with any sort of touch. But Peggy, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate in the slightest as she slid her palm under his, wrapping her fingers around his. Her hand felt bony and weak, the skin paper-thin, but the emotion in her face somehow made the gesture feel just as strong as the carefully thought-out orders she used to issue to agents and soldiers alike.

“Those bastards,” she remarked, taking him aback with the ferocity of the words. His memories of the war were always the faintest, given how his trauma from the past several decades mixed in with his willful repression of the horrors of that time. He couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen her lose the graceful poise and professionalism he currently remembered her for. “They did this to you. And it was all right under my nose…”

The amount of self-anger in her voice struck something painful through his chest. He’d never considered the possibility of her blaming his situation on herself, for not finding him within the dark underbelly of SHIELD where Hydra ruled. In all honesty, he hadn’t even considered the possibility she could be remorseful over _ anything_. From what he remembered from both his own memory and from Steve’s stories of their pasts together, Peggy had always done everything just right. She had dutifully followed orders (save for one exception, where she’d helped Steve go behind their colonel’s back to single-handedly rescue him and the rest of his division in Azzano). She had given wise direction as a founder of SHIELD. She’d clearly even had a family that she cared for and let care for her in turn. He didn’t blame her for not thinking of him in all that time, during such a full life. Especially when everyone around her had surmised he was MIA during the war. 

“I’m alright now,” he assured her. “I’m…I’m moving past it. I’m trying to get everything back.”

She brought her other hand to rest atop his, patting the metal with all the unflinching normalcy of a regular one. “That’s good. I’m glad. I’m very glad. Show them that they don’t control you anymore.”

“I’m tryin’.” Admittedly, he was a little sheepish about saying that. In a sense, he did still let Hydra control him. He was so stuck on what they’d done to him, he let the trauma of it affect his ability to function in everyday life. It made him so afraid of himself that he was currently considering leaving his sweetheart, so she could raise a family without the additional burden of managing him as he learned to cope with those demons. 

But he didn’t want to burden Peggy with all of that. Not when she already blamed herself for how his trauma originally occurred, and certainly not when she could do even less about it now, from here. Instead, he told her, “I’m getting better at taking back all the memories they tried to erase. It’s still a little hard, sometimes, telling what was real about ‘em and what wasn’t, but…I’m workin’ on it.”

He figured that would be safe to tell her. Perhaps, in this state, she could even relate to it. 

“That’s good,” she said again. “Write them all down. Keep them close. That will help you look back and realize what was real.”

“I will.” _ I do, _he kept to himself. “Thank you, Peggy.”

There must have been something in his voice or something in the way his eyes dipped down, but she didn’t seem comforted at all. She continued to stare at him, her face slowly falling as she did. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

His first instinct was to shake his head. “Nothing.”

“Sergeant.”

His mouth twitched, torn between a wince and a fond smile of how her admonishing tone was reminiscent of Wanda getting after him for trying to dismiss his discomforts. Peggy was likely going to be just as unwilling to drop the matter as Wanda would be. They were both so headstrong—so _ caring _ that way. He figured that meant he _ could _confide in her (perhaps, she wouldn’t even give him have any other choice). However, the remaining issue was, he wasn’t sure how he could articulate everything that had been bothering him as of late. 

“I just…I guess I’m…” He ducked his gaze to his lap like an embarrassed child, huffing in frustration at himself. “I think I’m just tired, Peggy. I’ve been at this life for so long. The missions, and the fighting, and the wear and tear—and I know it doesn’t have to be like that anymore. But…I don’t know. I guess I feel like I don’t deserve to just give up. I keep feelin’ like I should…I guess serve people, and protect them. I think to make up for this past I’ve got behind me. But there’s also this other part of me doesn’t want that, either.”

Peggy nodded, eyes glistening from tender understanding. She squeezed his hand with surprising strength. “You’ve served your time long enough, Barnes. You deserve whatever life you want. Whatever makes you happy.”

“I am,” he insisted. At first, it was only to soothe her concern for him, but then he found the words couldn’t stop. “I am happy, right now. I…I found this girl, and I really love her. Sometimes, it feels like she’s the only thing I fight for anymore. Like she’s the only good thing I have left that’s _ worth _ fighting for.”

She smiled widely, her gaze growing lighter with the relief he had been hoping for. “You’ll have to thank her for me, then. Thank her for being there for you. For taking care of you where I didn’t.”

That guilt again, that felt like an ice pick pricking his chest. “I’m alright now,” he reminded. 

“Yes, I know. And I am glad to hear it. That’s all I ever wanted for you. For both of you.” Her head turned to briefly glance at the door, where she must have last seen Steve. “I try to tell him that. Now that I’ve lived the life I have, the only thing I could ask for is that you two have yours.” Her gaze fell on Bucky again, hard with an authority that felt distantly familiar to the former sergeant. “Take back your memories, Barnes. And make new ones, too. Ones that will someday overpower those bad ones. That can soothe over the…‘wear and tear’ of the bad.”

She smiled again at her use of his own words back at him. Bucky wanted to share the fond sentiment, but he couldn’t. He was too caught up in the heavier feelings he was constantly carrying again, the things he could feel spill out of him because of desperate need to confide in _ someone _about the struggle it was to have them. Someone who understood the life he led, right down to the war that started it all. 

“I’m scared, Peggy,” he confessed, his voice growing small at the vulnerability of it. “All the darkness that I…it’s attached to me. I feel it inside of me. What if it doesn’t let go? I…I thought I wanted a future here, but now…now, I’ve got one staring me in the face, and I’m scared that…” he glanced at the metal plates pressed between Peggy’s hands, feeling them attempt to shift in spite of Stark’s smoother design, “that _ this _won’t go away. And if it ever got my family hurt—”

Peggy hushed him, raising her second hand to rest on his cheek instead. “Don’t fuss over those things so, Sergeant. Don’t let it weigh you down. You can’t let the past weigh down your future. That’s something I had to learn when we lost your friend, out there. After he lost _ you_. We can’t do anything about the past except learn from it. Learn what you truly love, what you truly want. Let it shape you further into who you are now. I assume you met this girl as you are now.”

Bucky nodded, finally feeling a smile of his own reach his mouth as he thought of those first days of his and Wanda’s relationship. “Yeah, I did.”

“Then I trust she knows what she’s in for. And she’ll find it in her heart to understand what it’s like for you.”

“Yeah. I think she understands more than anyone else could.”

He wisely chose to stop there, knowing it was probably better not to burden Peggy with the knowledge of Wanda’s background. The knowledge that there were others who had been caught in Hydra’s cruel web of human experimentations and manipulation, all against her knowledge, defeating the very purpose she had helped found SHIELD to begin with.

He didn’t dwell on the matter for long, knowing as well as he did now that Peggy was still perceptive enough to tell when he was hiding the full truth from her. Instead, he clung to his more pleasant memories of Wanda. Of how their relationship was built off that shared source of abuse. How caring for each other in the fallout was helping them both move on, and find a new life of normalcy and comfort through the other’s company. With that in mind, he realized how far he and Wanda had come from those first days of knowing each other. How much progress they had made, both in themselves and their bond. Perhaps Peggy was right; he was learning from his past, and being shaped into a new form of himself. One that could still function, just as she had learned to do after losing him and Steve. One that could have a family despite the life he had, like she had. Back in his younger years, before the war, and even before knowing Peggy, it _ had _ been something he wanted.

It was still something he wanted. He could sense that deep down, once he removed his concerns over what was most practical for someone with his history and his instability in every sense of the word. And given the rate he was going at with his healing, it seemed that so long as he had Wanda to work off of, he _ could _ manage it.

As it turned out, his cognitive redirection wasn’t in vain.

“You look happy when you think of her,” Peggy remarked.

“I’ll bet,” Bucky returned bashfully, now thinking of Wanda just as she was. Of her sweet kisses to his face, and her pretty face decorated with a sparse pattern of freckles he’d long ago memorized, and the fascinating powers glowing at her fingertips, and her tender hands running through his hair during an episode of upset. “Yeah. I’ve got it pretty bad for her.”

Peggy chuckled, the sound easing the sharp coldness in his chest yet again. “Well, I know how you and Steve can be to each other. If he tries to give you any grief about it, just let me know. I’ll make him answer for it.”

That made him grin, still amazed at how she remained to be such a confident spitfire, even after all this time. “Thank you, Peggy.”

She didn’t reply, but gently patted his metal hand. 

The door on the other side of the room suddenly swung open, revealing a grave-faced Steve. “Peggy, I’m sorry about this,” he said quickly, sounding as though he’d been running for miles. “Bucky and I have to go.”

Peggy patted Bucky’s hand a few more times, leaning closer to whisper something to him alone. “He knows we’re talking about him,” she teased.

Bucky snorted another laugh at that. However, his amusement was tempered by the urgency in Steve’s tone, and the way his friend kept glancing over his shoulder as if anticipating a sudden strike. The former sergeant stood up from his chair, carefully pulling his hand from between Peggy’s and tugging the leather glove that had fallen into his lap back over it. He made sure to keep his movements slow so as to not alarm Peggy, even though it became a struggle as his heartbeat began to pick up from trepidation, urging him to match Steve’s rushed demeanor. 

“Thank you for everything, Peggy,” Bucky repeated, this time more as a farewell, referencing her sparing her time for him.

Peggy only nodded, folding her hands back over their original place at her midriff. “Go on, boys. Tend to your affairs—and your family. I believe my own is going to be here very soon.”

“Right.” Bucky began inching away from her to reach Steve at the door. He could feel something twisting in his chest, torn between leaving to tend to whatever had gotten Steve riled up and staying to indulge in the company of someone as familiar and comforting as Peggy a while longer. However, he knew if Steve, of all people, was in such a sudden hurry to leave Peggy despite the fact that he had an even closer connection to her—had perhaps even loved her once—then something truly pressing must have come up. “Good-bye, Agent Carter.”

“Until next time, Sergeant. Steve.”

“Take care, Peggy,” Steve said, his voice suddenly soft and warm. Presumably, he was also hoping to spare her of any additional worry for them. Although as soon as she sank back against her pillow, letting her eyes slip shut with a tired, yet peaceful sigh, he resumed his agitated visage, ducking back into the hallway. By then, Bucky had left the room too. Once both soldiers were there, Steve grabbed Bucky’s arm and began pulling him along, seemingly uncaring that his grip made no difference to the metal limb. Or that Bucky was already matching his frantic pace, regardless of the extra prompting. In his other hand, the captain’s fingers were wrapped tightly around his phone, making Bucky’s apprehension skyrocket. Had someone contacted him? Was it someone back home? 

_ Oh, God. Wanda. _Did it have to do with her? Had she told the team she was pregnant? Were they grilling her about how it would affect their lives, and how they would go about sheltering her and Bucky now?

No, that didn’t seem like them. It certainly didn’t seem like _ Steve _ to get this upset over something like that. Something else had to be going on. Something was wrong.

He tried to reign in his panic while they were still in the retirement building. Steve wasn’t quite as inconspicuous, barely curbing his enhanced speed as they walked through the halls, let alone sparing the effort to release Bucky so he could raise his hand in a farewell gesture to the woman behind the front desk as she tried to call out her own good-bye to him. Bucky only ducked his head and hid behind Steve as much as he could, holding his covered metal arm close. 

The minute the crisp winter air outside nipped at Bucky, he could feel his questions threaten to spill out. However, Steve managed to beat him to it, barely waiting for the door behind them to swing closed before speaking lowly. “We’ve gotta get to the jet, and get home,” he declared. “We shouldn’t have stopped here.”

Bucky could gather that (though he was hesitant to say he regretted seeing Peggy again), but he couldn’t go on without knowing why. He reached for the sleeve of his friend’s jacket, willing him to stop. “Steve, what is this? What’s going on?”

Steve obediently halted, turning around to face Bucky. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, and merely stared at his friend as he caught his breath. Then he clenched his jaw in distress, gaze flitting down to his phone still in his hand. “Something happened in New York. Pietro got hurt—he’s in the hospital.”

_ Oh, God_. If something had happened to Wanda’s brother, she was sure to be distraught. And they had sent him to a hospital? Something had to be seriously wrong if he hadn’t been sent to the medical ward there, at Stark Tower. 

“Is Wanda with him?” There was a chance the team wouldn’t let her see Pietro if he was at a public hospital, where other people could harass her on her status as a potential threat to society. In a way, Bucky would prefer that. She didn’t need that stress on top of her usual discomforts with medical settings in general.

“That’s just it,” Steve answered solemnly. “They don’t know where she is.”

That didn’t register. That didn’t _ make sense_. Surely, Wanda would at least be with the team, trying to convince them to let her see her brother. “What do you mean they don’t know?” 

“I mean, they _ don’t know_,” Steve responded in a clipped tone. Seeing him become so increasingly impatient, especially with his unstable friend, was a true testament to how dire the situation was. How _ scared _he was for his other teammates. “It doesn’t sound like anyone knows. All Pepper said was that the twins left the Tower, and Pietro got shot, and now they’re trying to figure out where Wanda went. I think she knows about as much as we do past that.”

_No…no, no_. Bucky couldn’t accept that. Someone had to know where Wanda was. She couldn’t just disappear. She _wouldn’t _just disappear. Not on her brother. Not on her teammates, and not on _him_. Not like this. Not now, when she was—

_ Oh, no_. Bucky felt like his lungs were failing him just as the weight of everything was finally beginning to sink into his conscious mind. Pietro had been shot. Wanda was gone. No one knew entirely what had happened.

His sweetheart was lost. His _ pregnant _ sweetheart. The thoughts dove into his heart, throbbing with an agony that made his breaths catch in his throat. _ Please, no! _

It was awful. It was just like the year before, when Hydra had taken her. The call from a bewildered friend of Steve’s. Steve’s relay of the events, right down to his grim, yet determined expression. The distance from where Wanda was last seen, making the impending search for her all the more daunting. Only now, it was worse because he was on an entirely different continent. Because he’d _ run away _ to put off a difficult conversation with her.

His conversation with Peggy was now rendered naught. It was like the brief moment of hope for the life he once longed for, and the realization he still wanted it, never happened. The memory of what happened after Wanda’s last disappearance, of how she’d been tortured and hurt to the point of destroying the Avengers’ Facility—and nearly destroyed herself, in the process—was like a reopened wound, bleeding anew with fresh fear. Fear for her, for her brother, for himself. He didn’t know what he would do—how he would live with himself if anything like that happened to her again. If anything happened to the baby. _ His _baby inside of her.

_ You can’t keep her from us. Not her, not any children you have with her. _

He couldn’t breathe. 

“Steve,” he gasped, reaching again for his friend. Searching, but not seeing the only other person on the veranda with him. “Steve…where is she?”

Steve didn’t see him either. He was looking around them, as if appraising the civilians roaming the streets and sidewalks nearby. As if gauging whether any of them were hiding something, like an involvement with this whole affair. Or perhaps preparing for another attack, this time directed at them. “I don’t know. That’s why we’ve gotta get home. We’ve got to help look for her.”

Steve braced a hand against the back of Bucky’s shoulder, gently urging him to move forward. Bucky didn’t move. He didn’t trust his legs, didn’t trust his head as it swam with dozens more of those awful, agonizing thoughts. Of that terror, unparalleled by anything he’d ever felt before. Fighting Nazis, and falling from a train in the mountains, and losing his arm, and having his sense of self literally shocked out of his system…that wasn’t anything like this. _ This _ was torture, wondering whether someone close to his heart was suffering through those very same things. 

“Buck, come on,” Steve pressed, obviously forcing himself to be patient long enough to actually notice Bucky was struggling to process this. Or rather, Bucky was _ refusing _ to process it. “We’ve got to go. We’ll find her, I’m sure of it. I’m sure she just went somewhere to hide until the people who hurt her brother backed off. I’m sure.”

Bucky couldn’t be so sure. Not even for a moment, which he could sense was all Steve needed to uproot him from the spot and get him to the nearest train station that would lead them to the area where their quinjet was hidden. He wasn’t sure of _ anything_. 

This couldn’t be real. This was just a nightmare. Another twisted version of real people and real memories, like the nightmare he had last night. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t real…

“Buck—Bucky! Bucky!”

He didn’t heed Steve’s calls for him. He physically couldn’t, for he could feel his legs give way from under him. Steve did his best to hold him up, preventing him from falling completely to his knees. 

“Bucky—”

“No,” he whimpered. “No…no. No! _ Please!_”

Steve gathered him in his arms. He was guiding him to stand upright again. Hiding his breakdown from potential onlookers passing by them. Embracing him in comfort. Bucky barely felt it. He felt oddly distant from his friend. From his own body. He could only feel the cold. A burning chill from the air—from his _ panic _ and _ grief _ as he felt his entire world splitting apart, falling into danger. It settled at his core, etched itself into his bones, and threatened to freeze his entire system until he was faced with nothingness. It was like what he felt in his nightmare. Like what he felt every time Hydra froze him. What he felt when he fell from the train in the mountains. 

His breath was stolen from him. He was freezing. He was falling. No one would know how to find him. No one was going to save him. And no one was going to let him go back to his family. He was trapped. Alone. Lost, and cold.

He was the Winter Soldier once again. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for some very brief mentions of blood in this chapter and the next.
> 
> Translations:  
Soldat, otkuda vy menya znaete? - "Soldier, how do you know me?"  
Chernaya vdova - "Black widow"

The witch awoke to a pitch black room. Her limbs were agonizingly stiff from however long she had been lying in her curled up position. And she was on a bed of something prickly and brittle, no less. Beneath it, she could feel the chill of a sleek hard floor. It smelled like metal, tempered slightly by the scent of animal that clung to the straw. As more and more of her senses began to creep back into consciousness, the witch wasn’t entirely sure if she had truly woken up, or if her eyes were even open, since there was no light to be seen.

She shut her eyes again with a low groan, gritting her teeth against a throbbing ache in her shoulder. The same shoulder where her tracking implant was, the memory of which gave her an urge to scratch at it as she often did. She reached across her chest with her opposite arm to scratch, only to stop herself when she felt something hit her face in the process. She peeled her eyes open to see what it was, even though the lack of any light made no difference on her ability to see. Regardless, she was quick to recognize the texture and weight of a steel chain cuffed to her wrist. Curiously though, only her right wrist was cuffed. She gave it an experimental tug, finding the other end was secured to something sitting near her head. Her free arm flopped around blindly to find it, eventually landing on something hard and curved. It felt like some sort of hook or ring standing up in the straw. A few more tugs and even directly pulling on the object revealed that she was very securely tethered to it. 

Even more perplexing than that was the discovery of what had become of the skin beneath her cuff. Again, she could feel more than see what was there, but from the way the manacle slid up and down her wrist, she could tell the flesh was tender. Burned raw, just like it had constantly felt when her powers first activated in Hydra. Upon tucking the injured limb to her chest, she learned there were matching (if not worse) burns on her other forearm as well. Her movements also caused something she hadn’t previously noticed to be draped over her to fall slightly off her shoulder, inching down her back. She didn’t have the energy or motivation to stop it when it fell off her form completely, dropping onto the ground behind her with an audible crumple of clothing. She only closed her eyes again, hugging her hands to herself and breathing through her nose as she tried to ride out a mixed spell of nausea in her head, pain in her limbs, and an uncomfortable heat in her belly—

Her body jolted at the sudden thought that pierced through her confusion and malaise. _ The baby. _Perhaps it was irrational, considering the darkness, but she looked down at herself, reaching for the end of her jacket and top. She pulled them up to expose the skin there, feeling a strikingly cold knot of apprehension twist around her heart at what she found.

Her veins were glowing. They looked like brightly-colored red marks imprinted in her skin, circling around the edge of her stomach like the tiny, visible venation on a leaf or an insect’s wing. She hadn’t seen anything like it since the very first days of having her powers, and back then, they had only appeared around her wrists and in her palms. This was new. Frightening in its unfamiliarity. 

At least the ring of light around her stomach and the burn marks on her wrists were the only abnormalities she could find on herself. Both were clearly a product of her scarlet. Otherwise, it seemed like she hadn’t been harmed. Her clothes felt like the same she’d had on before. Her most recent memory was of her scarlet burning her from the inside out, making her light-headed. It must have been what caused her to faint. She couldn’t think of any other reason she would have blacked out the way she had. Now that she was pushing herself to remember, she thought she could also recall laying in the back of some sort of van, the walls a stark white and rattling as it sped along its way. Some heavy, white weight had been pressing down on her abdomen, making her disorientation worse and unconsciousness more tempting. Or…had that part been a dream?

Her curiosity over the matter faded quickly, replaced by relief that she was simply alright. That the baby was alright. True, she didn’t know how the special attention from her scarlet was affecting things, but somehow, she could sense it wasn’t hurting them. She placed a palm over her flat abdomen, right in the center of the ring of glowing red marks, and coiled in on herself. As if she was trying to press herself closer to them, so they could hear her whisper words of comfort. “It’s alright. We’re alright…”

The world around her suddenly lurched, causing Wanda to brace her hands against the floor. Her body froze that way for a while, ensuring the ground felt stable again before doing anything else. As she waited for that feeling of stability, she grew to realize that she wasn’t in a van at all. It had to be a ship or a plane. 

The thought brought the full extent of the situation to light in her mind. She was being taken somewhere. She didn’t know by whom, and she couldn’t remember if she had even seen anyone’s face when she originally lost consciousness before finding herself here. If she truly was on a plane or ship right now, then that meant she was being taken somewhere far from her team. From her soldier, and her brother. 

_ Pietro. _ Was he alright? She did remember being with him as someone shot him down. She remembered reluctantly obliging to his demands that she find out who was behind it. She remembered searching for the threat by following Luna. And _ Luna_. Where had she gone while Wanda was brought here? The witch couldn’t detect the surface of _ any _ mind in her telepathy’s ear. She wasn’t sure if it was another side effect of her powers receding to assess the changes that came with having a pregnant host, or if it actually meant no one was in her general vicinity. She didn’t know which would be worse: having Luna nearby, indicating that her powers were continuously failing her in her condition, or simply being alone, left to fend for herself in these seemingly boundless unknowns. Among them, the changes that were befalling her body and the location of her brother’s dog. Her brother’s _ service _dog, who he would need to help him pace himself if she didn’t make it home…

She couldn’t afford to think about that. Not here, when there was nothing she could do to resolve it.

“It’s alright,” she whispered again, probably more for her own sake this time than that of the little one inside her. In the madness of everything that was happening, it was comforting to think she could talk to them, at least. In a way, having them meant she didn’t have to consider herself completely alone. “We’ll be alright. Your Papa will find us. He always does.”

She winced at the thought of James. How protective he was over her, constantly living in fear of failing her. Of losing her, and the happy, comforting dynamic between them. When he found out she was here, it was sure to be painful for him. Why did she have to run? Why hadn’t she stayed with Pietro? Why hadn’t she waited for her teammates to help them? The qualified, _ experienced _ Avengers.

_ Stop, _she urged herself. Her teammates wouldn’t want her to blame herself.

Still, it was hard not to at least feel guilty when she figured how worried James must be. With how deeply he cared about others, there was no doubt in her mind that her disappearance would eat at him once he found out (if he hadn’t already). Especially considering how they had left things between them. 

She breathed a weak, partially embarrassed laugh upon recalling how strongly she had initially wanted to keep her pregnancy from James. She figured not knowing she was pregnant wouldn’t have affected how he felt about her going missing, but having that knowledge likely wasn’t alleviating his stress at all. 

It felt wrong to feel as guilty as she did for having placed that additional concern on him. It wasn’t her fault it had happened. It wasn’t his either. That enhancing serum had been forced on him so many years ago, its full effects unknown to them both.

_ The serum… _

The serum had affected her body. She still didn’t know the exact science of what happened, but she did remember Hilda’s explanation that the serum had apparently mixed with her own enhancements when she started sleeping with James. It had obviously healed her. But what if it had done even more than that? What if there were other side effects in her body from those enhancements coming together? 

The witch lightly jerked her wrist, relying on the sound of the other end of her cuff knocking against the steel pin to locate it. She looked to the source of the noise, finding the pin where it was near her head again. She then gathered the chain between the manacles in her fists, seizing one section near her chest and the other as far as her free hand could reach, and she pulled. Once the chain was taut, she continued to pull, rolling onto her back when she began to strain against the unyielding ring of steel. She was just as relentless, pulling and pulling, and _ feeling _ her scarlet slowly stir within her. However, that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t trust her scarlet at the moment. Not after it had made her overheat, causing her to pass out. 

No, the feeling she was seeking—the one she revelled in once she thought she could sense it awakening for the very first time within her—was strength. Enhanced super-soldier strength from a serum that had hopefully bled into the strength her scarlet occasionally lent her, when there was nothing else amiss with her body for it to be preoccupied with instead. She breathed deeply, flexing her fingers before she tightened her hold on the chain, and pulled.

The metal from the pin groaned. Wanda could feel it granting her chains more slack. It was _ bending_. 

Wanda pulled until she had no more room for it. She wasted not a second after that, scrambling to her feet. She stumbled at first, caught between the unsteady ground beneath her and the sudden rush in her blood after laying in the straw for however long. She pushed herself through it, standing upright and stepping backwards until she felt the cool ridges of a metal wall behind her. She spaced her legs apart for better leverage, incidentally finding the corner of her enclosure with her right foot. 

With no where else to go, the witch readjusted her grip on her chain and breathed in deeply. Then she gritted her teeth, and she pulled _ hard. _ Minute tremors coursed through her arms at her effort. The edges of each link in the chain dug ruthlessly into her skin, pinching the flesh of her palms. It was only a minor pain, barely noteworthy in her mind. Yet, it was apparently enough to finally spur her scarlet into action. She could feel the familiar heat of it welling up at her palms, casting a dull red glow that allowed her to actually _ see _ the pin she was pulling against. Being able to see it bending invigorated her, making her pull harder. Making the sense that she could distinctly feel the super-soldier serum thrumming in her veins all the more stronger. Making _ her _ feel stronger. The strength from her enhancements that she used to abhor. Strength from the enhancements James had received, a process he had survived. The strength James had given her.

She heard a brief _ clink _ before her body rocked backwards, her formerly restrained arm slamming against the wall beside her. She gasped at the impact, for it sent a prickling sensation through the limb. It was sharp enough to reignite the throbbing ache in her other arm. Both, however, were only minor grievances, which she immediately forgot about in the face of relief from realizing she had successfully freed herself. Or at least, from her leash. Even after she processed the achievement, her scarlet continued to glow. She didn’t waste time questioning why, but rather took advantage of it, grabbing the other end of the cuffs that were encircling her wrist with her brightly glowing free hand. Her fingers immediately began to shake, and it was unclear whether that was from the heat of her skin reacting to the cool metal or vice versa. After a few strained, heavy breaths, the cuff completely disintegrated under her scarlet’s touch. The chain it had formerly been attached to fell to the straw-covered floor with a muffled thump. 

Despite her restraints being completely gone, her wrists continued to vibrantly glow. Again, she didn’t consider it worth the time to question why her scarlet and body were reacting in such a way. Instead, she used it as her sole source of light as she pressed one hand to the wall and held the other up to eye-level to see where she was going. With the darkness and unfamiliar surroundings, each step made her search for the nearest door (or window) feel endless. At some point, the wall dipped into a corner between two. She ran her fingers experimentally up and down, finding the thick grooves of metal hinges. 

_ A door, _ she realized. The entire wall before her was a door.

With one hand still raised and providing vibrant red light, the witch ran her other hand along the door until she reached its edge. She then felt around that edge, finding another door on the other side. The two could push apart just enough for her to slip three of her fingers through their divide. She slid her fingers up and down, blindly feeling for _ anything _ nearby. She almost instantly hit something smooth and round. She guessed it was something to keep the doors locked in place. Her fingers were still glowing, but with the limited access they had to the space beyond the doors, she didn’t trust they would be able to channel her scarlet in the right direction to eat away at the bar. 

She stepped back, not deterred in the least. Now that she had found the door to her cage, she felt like she had found the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. If she could just get past these doors, she would be that much closer to complete freedom, and she would find her way back to her team. Back to her family, her brother and her soldier. Her body was practically shaking with her mixed excitement and apprehension to get out of this place, and meet whatever was on the other side. No matter what it was, it would be a step closer to getting herself back _ home_, where she could keep herself and the little one inside of her safe.

Wanda shifted her feet from side to side, wriggling her way through the straw to press the balls of her feet as firmly as possible against the floor of her enclosure. Her hands, she pressed flush against the metal doors before her, one on either side of the divide. She was still able to see it only because of the faint glow in her veins. She fixed her gaze on that luminous red, inhaled deeply, and pushed. Like before, she thought of the super-soldier serum mixing with her own enhancements, aiding her in strength. 

The metal of the doors didn’t bend as easily as the ring for her leash had. She winced at how loud their groans of protest were, hoping against hope that whoever put her in here wasn’t close enough to hear. Her scarlet glowed even brighter as she strained herself to push with greater strength, adding to her anxiety that if anyone was nearby, they would notice the light, and her efforts to escape. Or worse, her blood would overheat and make her drop again. 

_ Stop thinking_, she told herself, this time keeping Pietro in mind. The last time she had seen him, he had been urging her to get out of her own head so she could act more efficiently. That was what she needed to do here. She needed to just act. 

Something groaned. Loudly. Wanda stepped forward, taking another chance with the doors. They were slightly more lax, allowing her to stick her arm through as far as her elbow. She was quick to find the metal bar again, and could feel that she had given it a slight curve in its center. 

For a moment, she didn’t do anything more. She simply froze, holding her breath as she waited to ensure her telepathy still couldn’t feel anyone nearby. 

No one was close enough to catch her. Yet.

Once she felt confident in her solitude, the witch slipped her hand under the bottom end of the bar. After some pushing and pulling, she learned that it was meant to be pushed up, then forward. At that, it swung down, clanking noisily against the left-hand door. Despite confirming for herself that no one was closeby, Wanda winced at the resounding bangs. She held her breath in the silence that followed. She waited. Felt around with her telepathy.

Nothing.

Daring to hope, she pushed the doors on either side of her completely open. They were heavy, and in the darkness she couldn’t see exactly how far they opened for her. But from the burst of warm air she could feel sweep over her form, she knew it was large enough for her to move through. She instantly tried to step out of her enclosure, only to have her heart drop in horror when she couldn’t feel any ground to step _ on_. She scrambled backwards, panicking even more when the ground she _ could _ feel lurched beneath her. She stumbled blindly until she relocated the wall, pressing herself against it until the world steadied. Even then, she stayed with her back literally against the wall, breathing deeply to get her heart rate back to normal. To get her _ thoughts _ under control, as the brief moment of panic set fire to a field of doubt in her mind. 

She couldn’t do this. Not with her powers acting the way they were. That had only gotten her here, trapped in literal darkness with unknown people in some unknown place. She didn’t even know where she would go if she did make it out, or what she would find. If she truly was on a ship or a plane, she didn’t know how she would find her way back to land, let alone back to Stark Tower. Maybe it was better if she learned from the incident in the park. She could just stay where she was. Not push her luck any further. Wait for James and their teammates to come find her. 

But then a new form of doubt rushed over her. Could she afford to wait? What would she be subjected to in the time it took the team to find her? More electroshock treatment?

She couldn’t go through that again.

Swallowing hard, the witch pressed her hand against the wall at her side. Sometime during her moment of panic, the scarlet light in her veins had regressed, sending her back into pitch blackness. Forcing her to rely on her sense of touch to get around. She ran her hand against the wall to find the corner again, and from there found the edge of the left side door. This time, she didn’t let go of it, but rather gripped it with both hands as she reached for that first step towards the outside of her enclosure with a slow, cautious foot. The darkness made the drop feel infinite, though in reality, it was probably no more than a few inches, judging from how one foot could still feel her metal enclosure and the other could feel the non-metal ground. She kept a hold on the edge of the door as she brought her other foot down, gripping it even tighter once she put her full weight on the ground.

Definitely a plane. She could feel the wind rushing past on the other side despite the thick boots she had on. It was frightening in a way she hadn’t previously experienced. She had been flying before, on quinjets with the team (and a couple of times, even from her powers). But those aircrafts always moved so smoothly. There, the walls and ground were thick, secure, and well-lit. There, she had always been in the passengers’ space. This was something else, someplace less important. The storage space, probably.

Somehow, knowing that made her regain some confidence. She resumed using only one hand against her metal enclosure to feel her way around it. Her other hand, she held as high as it could reach. It didn’t make any difference to her telepathy’s ability to reach out, but it did make her feel better to have something to do with her free hand as the other ran along the wall of the metal enclosure. She guessed the enclosure was some sort of box, or maybe even a pen, considering the straw and scent of animal that came with it. On the other hand (literally), she still couldn’t feel anything, neither physically or telepathically. 

By the time she reached the opposite corner of the metal box, she thought she could hear voices. Muffled, gruff voices coming from above. Or maybe from beside her. Wherever the passengers’ quarters were. She tried to envision her mind’s eye reaching out, reaching further so her telepathy could properly hear them. Yet it didn’t work. She knew it wouldn’t if she couldn’t physically see who was there. 

The witch flexed her fingers, seeking to summon her scarlet. Encouraging it to materialize again, to tear down the barrier between her and her captors. Or at the very least, provide her with some light again. But alas, the more she pushed her scarlet, the more it resisted. She could actively feel it moving sluggishly within her. She figured it would only materialize again for something instinctive, like when she pushed herself to try utilizing the strength she gained from the Winter Soldier serum. She wondered what other situations were dire enough to spur such a reaction. She wondered if they were even worth testing at the moment. 

The plane rocked again. Wanda braced both hands against the metal wall beside her to hold herself steady. Without the additional protection of her box, the turbulence felt even more jarring. She rested her forehead against the metal as well, letting its cool touch soothe her skin as her head slowly felt the effects of a headache creeping in from so much disorientation. And nausea.

_ No. Do not throw up here. Do _ not _ throw up here. _

As the plane’s flight evened out, Wanda sighed in rueful surrender to her next thought. There was nothing else she could do. She very well couldn’t escape from a plane mid-flight. She couldn’t reach her captors from here, let alone manipulate them with her powers when said powers weren’t cooperating. All she could do now was wait. Wait for the plane to land, and for her captors to disembark with her. It was going to be a difficult wait, given her anxiety to get back to her teammates and Pietro. But it was a necessary wait under the circumstances.

The witch felt her way back to the other end of the box. Once she found the door, she held onto it with one hand and searched for the floor to her enclosure with the other. When she found it, she chanced releasing the door to brace both hands against it, and hauled herself up and over that bottom edge. The straw nipped at her palms as she crawled across it, but it was welcome for its indication that she had truly made it back into her enclosure. There, she regained her footing and reached blindly for both doors of the box, bringing one closed completely, and bringing its partner closed as best she could without closing it on her fingers. Hopefully, it was close enough that her captors wouldn’t instantly see that she was ready for escape when they unloaded the box from the plane. 

Having returned to the pseudo-safety of her enclosure, Wanda felt her way to the corner nearest to the doors. Upon finding it, she sank to the floor with her back pressed against the sleek metal. She hugged her knees to her chest, preparing herself to remain there for however long the flight would last. She pressed her cheek to her knees, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She figured she should get some rest before taking on whatever awaited her when they landed. And she waited, anxious and lonely, for that inevitable confrontation.

* * *

Natasha wasn’t one to reveal when she was anxious. Not in any way, shape, or form. For a majority of her upbringing, she had been told not to even acknowledge those vulnerable, undesirable feelings, even to herself. Now, however, she was hyper-aware that she was displaying all of the standard tells of someone who was agitated. Her eyes were repetitively flitting over the tablet screen in front of her, rewinding the footage every now and then as she realized she hadn’t processed any of the two videos she was watching. When she wasn’t rewinding video, her fingers were tapping restlessly against the surface of the breakfast bar she was sitting at. And when she did pay attention to the footage before her, she was gnawing on her lip. 

On one half of the tablet, Natasha had news coverage playing. One of those 24-hour news channels, and the only one that had not stopped discussing the Maximoff twins for the past five hours. At first, they had covered the same details about the shooting every other station had. Then they moved on to a review of the Maximoffs’ shifting place in the public eye, going from heroes who aided the Avengers, to human weapons that could potentially threaten general society. Now, the news anchors were debating what could have possibly prompted the Maximoff shooting. Nothing about it proved useful to Natasha, seeing as they were only dealing with their personal theories so far. No new, actual facts had come in yet. 

On the other half of the tablet screen, she had the security feed playing from the nearest police station, which she had hacked into with disturbing ease, even for her. The police seemed to have significantly less interest in what had become of the Maximoffs since Pietro’s shooting that morning, and were more preoccupied with making sure the other families that had been there felt safe in their neighborhoods. On one hand, Natasha could understand that, and how the safety of the overall community was their larger priority. But on the other hand, she was curious—and bothered—by the fact that the police didn’t seem to care about what became of the Maximoffs at all. Or at least, considered them unworthy of the press that would come with a case surrounding them. Like they had just assumed the Avengers would take care of their own by themselves (which, of course they would. They _ were_).

Natasha wouldn’t know the police’s intentions for sure while she had the audio for their security feed muted in favor of listening to what the newsreel was saying. She was waiting until they started bringing in potential suspects to the shooting before switching the audio. Although, it likely wouldn’t matter which audio was playing when all she could really hear was Pepper’s half of an argument over the phone at the other side of the room. She had been locked into the call for almost three hours now, with some politician or other, and clearly growing increasingly frustrated (and thus louder) with how they were trying to handle the situation on their end. 

“We are not implying Miss Maximoff has any sort of legal authority to act independently,” Pepper was saying. “No…no! We did not ask her to act on the Avengers’ behalf at all. Any action she took was meant to have the same authority as any other concerned samaritan. There…_what? _ How is that relevant? What does…no! The events of Sokovia were not the result of _ anyone’s _intentional actions.”

Natasha rubbed her head at that, having long ago grown sick of the public’s endless attempts to use the Battle of Sokovia against the twins and the Avengers alike. 

At the moment, Tony was (pardon the pun) a stark contrast to his wife. He was completely silent. It was eerie, even without knowing how hyper-verbal he usually was, with a wry comment for everything. Right now, though, he was dutifully trained on whatever he was working on with his laptop at the breakfast table nearby. From what Natasha could see (which granted, she didn’t spare much time for while also monitoring the two videos), he had barely moved since he had returned from the crime scene in Central Park. He remained frozen in his place, hunched over the computer and fingers repeatedly pecking at the same few keys on the keyboard. Natasha considered it a legitimate question whether he had even blinked in the past hour. 

“How we looking over there, shellhead?” Natasha called across the ways as her form of expressing concern for him.

“It’s coming,” he answered back, the sound partially muffled by the palm of his hand where his face was leaning into it. His other hand clicked at two keys. And clicked again. And again. And again.

“Is there any data from the tracker yet?” Natasha asked, admittedly letting some of her impatience get the best of her. They were nearing six hours at this process, and none of them had gotten any closer to learning who could have shot Pietro or where Wanda had gone. “Even if there’s a delay, I can start heading over to the sites to investigate leads.”

“I wouldn’t trust it,” Tony said honestly. “There _ is _ a delay, and it’s way too large. By the time you get there, the lead will likely be cold. Just give me some more time, and I’ll be a little closer to finding where she actually is.”

“Where does the tracker say she is right now?”

“I’m looking at lower Manhattan.”

Natasha’s head swam with the light sensation of hope. “So, she’s still in New York?”

“Well, like I said, the delay for the data coming in is too large. I think it’s better to wait just a little longer to get a more accurate idea of the direction she’s heading in.”

“It’s about to be six hours,” Natasha reminded. “By this point, the longer we wait, the window to find her becomes more and more slim.”

“Those stats are for the average, totally inexperienced abductee. Maximoff has both personal enhancements and an experience with imprisonment that should give us a little leeway.”

Natasha frowned. Her fingers resumed their restless tapping against the countertop. She had yet to tell anyone else what Pietro told her about Wanda’s powers behaving abnormally. It simply hadn’t been relevant to their efforts to search for her, thus far. Now, she wondered if it was worth telling Tony, to let him know the extent of what they were working with. Or would it only make matters worse by putting more pressure on him? 

She didn’t bring it up. Instead, she asked, “What if I started looking around the city? If that thing shows her in lower Manhattan after six hours, surely she’s still around there somewhere.”

“There’s a delay in the data,” Tony pointed out again, still not tearing his gaze from the computer screen.

“Well, how big could it be?”

“I don’t know.”

Natasha’s skin crawled at that. She couldn’t place exactly how, but from just those three words, she could feel the icy touch of suspicion. “How can you not know? Aren’t you the one who designed the modified version?”

“I designed the modified tech, but the chip is not a tracker.”

Now Nat was the one not blinking. She turned on her stool to face him, gripping the edge of the breakfast bar until her knuckles paled. “I’m sorry, what?”

There was a beat of silence. Then Tony repeated himself. “The tech I injected her with isn’t a tracker.”

Natasha’s hand twitched. Slowly, she pushed herself off the stool and began stalking towards the inventor. “What do you mean it’s not a tracker?” she ground out.

Tony sucked in a breath. He obviously figured out she was drawing nearer, for he turned in his seat to better face her. His met her gaze evenly—boldly—but his careful tone betrayed how wary he was of receiving the former assassin’s disapproval. “It is not a tracker.”

“What do you_ mean _ it’s not a tracker?” Natasha demanded, the volume of her voice rising with anxiety-fueled impatience. “What the hell else have you been doing this whole time?”

“I’ve been looking at the tracking implant Hydra gave her. When I disable my suppressant, I can read its data. Then I re-enable it to make sure Hydra doesn’t have time to notice the tech is active again, let alone read its data themselves.”

Natasha was right in front of him now, just a few inches away from reaching out and grabbing him by the shoulders to shake him. She crossed her arms over her chest to remind herself to stay restrained. And patient. “Why is that even a risk? Why couldn’t you have just attached your own tracker to the first one?”

“You didn’t ask for another tracker. You asked me to make sure Hydra couldn’t read their own. That’s what I did.”

Natasha opened her mouth to question him again, but Tony was quick to cut her off. “A device of _ any _ kind that has to be accessed remotely like that has the potential to be hacked by unwanted eyes. Even _ my _ tech. I get that. I _ learned _ that much when a murder bot went rogue and wrecked Sokovia. In case you forgot, Banner, Cap, and the twins insisted I don’t make another one after that!”

“There’s a difference between an AI and a tracking device, Tony!” Natasha snapped, her voice rising to the point of her catching Pepper leaving the room in her peripheral, most likely for the sake of her phone call. How exactly she was reacting to Tony and Nat’s conversation, the spy didn’t know. It didn’t even matter, because _ this _ was much more pressing.

“I recognize there’s a difference,” Tony stated, his voice clipped with forced restraint. “That doesn’t change the fact that either one has the capacity to be hacked by others—”

“Including us! If we needed that data to find her if she got separated on a mission, or was abducted, or vanished into thin _ fucking _ air!”

“If you had asked for that, I would’ve made it. Hell, I might have made one for everybody on the team! God knows it could’ve helped us get locations on Thor and Banner. But that’s not what you wanted. That’s not what _ Wanda _ wanted at the time.”

“So, she at least knows you didn’t stick her with another tracker?”

“She knows I suppressed Hydra’s tech, so that only we can control what’s readable. That’s all she cared about. That’s all _ we _ were all worried about. And personally, I didn’t think she wanted us constantly watching where she went or what she was doing. And I don’t think you would’ve done any different if she had come to you instead.”

“No,” Natasha protested, her tone matter-of-fact. “No. No! Even if she had, I would have at least had the foresight to tell you—and the rest of the team, for that matter—exactly what I had made before I injected her with the damn thing!”

Tony faltered, evidently out of excuses for himself. “Well…I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“So, what can you do right now?”

“I can do what I’ve _ been _doing. I can temporarily disable the suppressant long enough to get a reading without tipping off its home system. From there, we can piece together the readings to map out the path she’s made, and guesstimate where she’s going based on that. I just need a couple more readings, and then Jarvis will be able to narrow down the projected paths to a small number that we can work with.”

Natasha sighed shortly, turning to pace the distance between him and her former seat in frustration. To his credit, Tony sounded perfectly confident in his current plan. However, the additional time it would take to map out Wanda’s _ potential _ paths rather than directly pinpoint her current location was yet another complication on top of an already harrowing search for the most powerful member of their team. A necessary complication if it meant Hydra wouldn’t have time to read that data, but still. It was additional time for whoever had taken her to get farther away. Or for Wanda, herself, to get farther away, if she had run off on her own (which Natasha could acknowledge was a possibility, despite how uncharacteristic it seemed for Wanda). 

As it was, Tony did have a point. Nothing could be done to change what he had already done (as angry as it made her that he hadn’t been entirely honest about what he was working on from the start). It definitely felt like there was no other option than to proceed the way he had been. 

Tony, meanwhile, watched Natasha as she paced. It took a few heartbeats for Natasha to realize he was waiting for her approval to actually resume his task of pinpointing where Wanda had been. Even if Natasha could cognize an alternative course of action under the limited circumstances, it would have been interrupted by a chime from Jarvis overhead. 

“Sir,” the AI spoke. “You and Agent Romanoff requested to be notified when Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes arrived. My sensors detect them entering the flight garage now.”

_ Of course they are, _ Natasha thought despite herself, irritated by how complications to their situation just kept adding on, seemingly in that very moment. Issues _ she _ had to manage, what with Tony preoccupied with this, Sam unreachable while he was tracking down the intruder at the Avengers’ Facility, Pietro still hospitalized, and Clint at home with his family, simply not answering his phone (though Natasha had a feeling he would step up once he checked his messages).

“Fine, keep at it,” she ordered Tony, gesturing vaguely to the computer screen behind him. “You handle that, and I’ll handle this. But I want to see results we can actually work with by the time it’s done.”

“Of course,” Tony promised, finally turning in his chair to face his work. “I should have enough to work with by the next hour.”

Natasha was already heading towards the stairwell that would take her to the flight garage. “You have forty minutes.”

She didn’t wait to argue their exact time constraint any further. She had reached the stairwell, and was now pushing past the door. She also passed Pepper sitting on some of the steps there, still speaking heatedly with the politician on the phone. Natasha did acknowledge the other woman with a respectful nod as she carefully stepped around her to ascend the next flight of stairs. 

Each step up the stairs filled her with more and more dread as to what she would face once she reached the super-soldiers. Particularly because of the last message Steve had sent her. _ Bucky’s not ok_, it had read. Of course, she had figured as much would happen when Bucky found out about what happened to the twins, given his close connection to them. But something about the way Steve had phrased it, how he would need her help through it, made it sound like an especially daunting reaction. One that she now had to deal with, on top of the challenging search for Wanda.

When she finally reached the flight garage, the quinjet was just pulling into the landing strip. Natasha inhaled deeply, bracing herself in a way. She stepped closer as the aircraft came to a full stop, there in the center of the landing strip rather than its designated slot between the other machinery. At the sound of the ramp lowering, she began heading to the rear side of the aircraft, only to stop when Steve jogged out to meet her halfway there. 

He looked…alright. A little haggard and stressed, but that was perfectly justified. There was a small rip in the sleeve of his jacket, but otherwise, he looked the same as when he left. She had been expecting much worse. The cynic in her even opened her to the possibility it would be just as bad as when she found him after the battle over the Potomac river (even though he wouldn’t have been fit to fly in that condition).

Steve cut right to it. “Please, tell me you have a lead.”

Natasha sighed, unable to give him the hope he was looking for. She only nodded at the rip in his jacket. “Please, tell me you got jumped by a stranger.”

He sighed as well, heavy and troubled. He sent a glance at the jet beside them, grabbing his hair. “God…he was doing so well. The whole mission, he was fine. This morning, he even sounded like…like his old self. _ Just like _ himself, before the war.”

Hearing the disappointment in his tone made Natasha’s heart go out to him. She how much this mission had meant to him. What it meant to their friendship, which was very slowly moving back to the state Steve once knew it as. Hell, this mission meant a lot to the whole team. It was supposed to be the first step in integrating Barnes back into field work. Even if he, himself, preferred not to join the Avengers on missions when it wasn’t necessary, simply having proof that he was mentally fit for it would have been a strength in their eventual argument with the federal authorities over whether their ranks were the most suitable place for someone with his enhancements, skills, and experience. Especially his experience, which was the predominant reason the authorities wanted him. They wanted the Winter Soldier to answer for such a history. 

“What happened?” she pressed.

“I got the call from Pepper while he was talking to Peggy. When I told him, we were on our way out, and at first, he just shut down. Which was fine—I was at least able to pull him along with me through the train station. Then when we got to the jet…I don’t know what happened—if it was the way the jet moved as we were taking off, or if sitting by himself made it finally sink in, or what—but he got really agitated. He was mumbling something, I think in Russian, about complying with his orders. And then he started to get really anxious. I had to have Jarvis fly, so I could keep him in his seat. I was worried he would try to open the door and jump out or something.”

_ Wonder where he would get an idea like that, _ Natasha thought to herself, eyeing the soldier before her. The same soldier who would do something very similar numerous times when they went on missions for SHIELD together, prior to SHIELD’s fall. 

“That’s around the time I had Jarvis send you that message,” Steve went on. “I think he’s in shock or something, and I…I don’t know what to do.”

The helplessness in his tone made Natasha reach out to him, taking his hand and lacing their fingers together. Although as upsetting as his distress was, she was secretly glad he could admit to her when he felt at a loss with a situation. Especially one concerning his oldest friend, whose recovery Steve so often considered to be his responsibility, alone, given their history together. 

“OK, it’s OK,” she soothed. “Just take a breath.”

He didn’t take a breath. “He needs Wanda. Do you have _ any _leads?”

Regretfully, she told him the truth. “No.”

“What do you have?”

_ A tracker that’s not ours. An incomplete map. _ “Not much. Pietro was the only one with her when she ran. He says he told her to go. He told her to find who shot him.”

Steve stared, clearly not buying that as the whole story. “…but?”

Natasha didn’t answer at first. She took her hand back, fiddling with her own fingers as she tried to articulate her thoughts. “The person who shot Pietro…it was a sniper from a building nearby. Even he knew it had come from above. And yet, he told her to follow Luna. They ran into the park, and she even burned a bridge there. I don’t know what…_ she _ would have known that a shot like that came from a sniper. I don’t get why either of them would let her follow the dog.”

Steve shook his head, looking just as perplexed as she felt on the matter. “That is weird.” He waited a beat before tentatively asking, “Do you think there’s a possibility that…you know…that she ran away for a different reason?”

She _ had _considered it, but again, ultimately didn’t believe it was in Wanda’s character. “No. Not if she saw her brother get shot. I’m more surprised she ran in the first place, even though he told her to.”

Steve didn’t look convinced. He shot another, longer glance at the quinjet. 

Natasha didn’t trust that look. “What?”

He hesitated, not meeting her eye for an unsettlingly long second. When he looked at her again, he leaned in close to do it, voice dropping to a low whisper. “Bucky really was doing OK while we were over there. But the whole time, I…I still felt like there was something off with him.”

“Off, how?”

“Like something was on his mind the whole time. Bothering him. I tried to talk to him about it, and apparently, Wanda was going through something similar. I think it might have been something that happened between them. It even got him talking like he—or hell, maybe both of them—wanted to leave the Tower. For good.”

Natasha was quick to realize what he was heading towards, and she bristled at the idea. “She did _ not _ set this up.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“She would not use something like this as a cover to leave. She knows we would try to find her. She wouldn’t do _ anything _ that would get her brother hurt. You know that!”

“I do, I do.” He nodded insistently, taking both of her hands in his in assurance. “I do. I’m just saying…I think something happened between them. It might say something to her state of mind when she ran off. Maybe even why the shooting happened. They know something we don’t.”

Natasha forced herself to breathe deeply at that, begrudgingly admitting to herself that he was right in that regard. With a sigh, she tried to move on from the subject by asking, “Where is Barnes now?”

“Still onboard. Like I said, I had to do something to keep him in his seat while we were flying because I didn’t trust him to not act out.”

As he spoke, Steve turned to lead the way to its ramp, with Natasha following close behind. Sure enough, as they ascended the ramp into the quinjet’s cabin, she caught sight of Bucky in one of the passenger seats running along the left wall. Admittedly, the team was usually very neglectful of riding with their seat belts fastened, due to how smoothly the quinjets flew. Now, however, Bucky was strapped down by each shoulder and across his lap, the same way they would have done to a prisoner in their custody. A closer look revealed Steve had even found a magnetic cuff that must have been left somewhere there from the days when SHIELD used these jets (ironically, the cuffs had been designed by sleeper Hydra agents for the purpose of containing Captain America). It was secured around Bucky’s right wrist, tethering his metal wrist to it. 

“I didn’t know how else to keep him down,” Steve repeated, obviously noticing her appraising his handiwork. 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Natasha whispered, vaguely gesturing for him to step aside so that she could stand directly in front of Bucky. At that angle, she was better able to see him. _ Really _ see him. 

Somehow, he seemed simultaneously better and worse off than she had initially believed he would be. He had managed to at least appear calm, sitting stone-still in his restraints. Yet his eyes were deceptively blank and hard. Natasha could only liken it to the Winter Soldier she had once known back in the Red Room. The one who was detached from everything around him, functioning more as a machine made to follow orders rather than a human with agency and emotions of their own. The one who had their humanity stripped away. But his metal fingers were twitching, in what could have been mistaken as a vain attempt for the individual plates to shift the way they sometimes used to before receiving Tony’s updated design. However, Natasha knew better. She could look closer, and saw that he was really trying to work the cuff off. Betraying that he did still feel something, and how deep it ran inside him. Anxiety that was bordering on desperation to get out of there, to fix this. 

This was not going to be easy.

“Why don’t you take a minute?” Natasha suggested to Steve, gingerly tugging on his arm. Knowing he wasn’t likely to take a break for his own sake, she added, “Maybe get him some water? I can see what I can do on my own, but something cold might be a good restart to his system.”

She was surprised when Steve didn’t argue with her. Aside from a remorseful glance at Bucky, and how he had been restrained by his old friend, the Captain barely acknowledged him as he turned back towards the jet’s exit. He did, however, give her a lingering look as though he was concerned about leaving _ her _ alone with Bucky while he was in this state. Ultimately—_thankfully_—though, he turned away with a tiny nod of acquiescence. Natasha wasted a moment simply watching him go, taken aback and also relieved to see he trusted her to take over caring for his friend for him. 

In watching Steve, Natasha turned away from the former Winter Soldier. Now, she turned back to face him, and she found him staring directly at her with that icy, dispassionate glare. She sucked in an apprehensive breath. Then she straightened her posture, summoning the equally detached visage of the Black Widow. Hopefully it was an image that he, in this state, would perceive as an equal. Not a handler or a threat, or even a concerned colleague that would ultimately make no difference to him, but rather an asset that existed on the same level as him. Quite literally, as she leaned over to meet his eye level. 

“_Soldat_,” she said simply, only looking to gauge how far gone he was in his current stupor. When he didn’t answer soon enough, she pressed on with, “_Otkuda vy menya znaete?_”

She noticed then that his eyes weren’t just distant. They were entirely unfocused. Glazed over the way she had occasionally seen in various field agents, and even a couple of times in Tony and Wanda. He was breathing shallowly, yet quietly, like he was teetering on the edge of a full-fledged panic attack like that. 

It was unnerving to see the former Winter Soldier, of all people, like this. The unflappable, emotionless Winter Soldier who had worked with her Red Room trainers to make her a more efficient killer in the past—who had curbed her own ability to succumb to panic like this—was so far from the image before her.

He still didn’t answer her. Natasha tried something else, this time in English. “How do you know the witch, Wanda Maximoff?”

That got a rise out of him. His mouth twitched in the beginnings of a snarl. 

“You remember who she is?” Natasha pressed, speaking slowly now out of caution with pushing him too far too soon.

A beat passed, in which she thought he would continue to leave her with nothing. But then he growled lowly, “The twins don’t belong to you.”

That didn’t reveal much about whether he recognized her or where they were. Or even what period of time they were in, given that she still didn’t know exactly how far-reaching Bucky’s bond with the twins was. Whether he had known them during their shared time under Hydra, or only when Wanda sought him out on Steve’s behalf remained between him and Wanda alone. That was how close they (or Bucky, at least) held the inner workings of their relationship to heart, how private they kept it. 

It wasn’t something Natasha had the time to visit right now. Not with how much time she had unwittingly wasted already by letting Tony only half-use the tracking implant in Wanda. 

“They don’t belong to you, either,” she said instead. “They’re their own persons. It’s important for you to remember that. So, no matter what happens to them, it’s not your fault. They acted on their own accord.” 

He twitched, looking to the ramp beside them. “They don’t belong to you.”

“I know they don’t.”

He kept repeating it. And he kept grimacing, as if some sharp point was continuously pricking him. “They don’t…the twins…they don’t belong to you. The…the Avengers will find her.”

Natasha’s heart became heavy with realization. He was having a flashback to when he went after Wanda last year. The team had sent him to Andreas von Strucker’s base to investigate their plans with her in a highly-risky undercover op. The time Bucky and Wanda had spent there before the Avengers reached them became another aspect of the pair’s shared past that they never talked about with anyone else. She couldn’t fathom what that must have been like for him, having to face his old tormentors on the off-chance that his lover’s team would be able to free them in time for him to get information that would potentially keep her safe. Obviously, it had to have been awful for it to reappear in his mind like this. From the way he twitched, Natasha could guess he’d at least been subject to some form of electric-shock, which had been Hydra’s primary solution to keeping him subdued for so many years. A method of abuse he was feeling all over again in his mind now. 

There was _ no time _ for this.

“We are going to find her,” Natasha assured. She knew this next part was going to the particularly difficult part. “And this time, we’re going to let you stay out of it. Do you understand?”

He wasn’t listening. He was mumbling the same nothings of before, looking around the quinjet cabin on both sides of him now. Searching for Wanda. Where had she been when whatever was in his mind originally played out? How would she help him work past it here and now?

Natasha raised her hand, hesitating for a few beats before she placed it uncertainly on his arm, as close as she could get to the seam of his artificial limb when the bulky seat straps were in the way. She swept her thumb over the lining between two of the plates, as she had sometimes seen Wanda do absentmindedly whenever the pair stood close together. “Listen to me. Whatever you’re seeing right now is not real. We got you out of that base. Both out of you. Something else has happened now, and I need you to listen to me.”

“The Avengers…” he whispered.

“We’re right here. Do you understand? Can you focus on me?” She squeezed his arm where her fingers were wrapped around it. “Come on. Focus on me. Deep breath.”

He sucked in a breath. He didn’t hold on to it.

“Try again. Come on. I need you with me for this.”

He inhaled again, and this time, Natasha breathed with him, demonstrating what she wanted him to do. She guided him through a few more, waiting until his gaze started to return to the present before she pressed further. “Are you with me? Do you know me?”

He didn’t answer at first. He didn’t even look at her, instead staring ahead with his jaw clenching. For a moment, she was worried he had simply fallen back under the veil of panic. But then he did answer, albeit with his voice still hollow and detached. “_Chernaya vdova_.”

Again, that wasn’t a very strong indicator of where he was mentally. But it was a start, at least. “Listen to me. That was last year. We don’t know if this is like that. We don’t even have confirmation that it was Hydra’s doing. What we do know is that this all started in a public place, so now we’re operating in the eye of the public. And the fact of the matter is that to them, you are still a highly wanted criminal.”

Bucky was quick to figure out where she was going with this. “No…” He shook his head like a petulant child. “No.”

“You can’t be seen with us,” Natasha pressed on. “You can’t be seen at all.”

“No!”

“You need to sit this out. It’s not like the data mining missions, where there are shadow conditions. We’re under public scrutiny here, and for the sake of efficiency, you have to wait—”

“_No!_” He lunged forward, apparently forgetting that he was as restrained as he was, and thus, couldn’t move any more than an inch forward. 

Natasha wasn’t fazed. However, she did give him a moment to settle down. To surrender to the fact that she (and Steve) had the upper hand in this situation. Though, it was in no way easy for her. In the past, maybe she would have exerted this kind of authority without a shade of compassion or sympathy. But now, after living with the team and being Steve’s partner (both professionally and romantically), she had learned to harness those sentiments, had even learned to appreciate them. And they made her painfully aware of how hard this was to hear. How much she would hate to be in his place.

“I know you want to blame yourself. I know you feel like you have to do whatever you can to make this right. I know you feel like it _ has _to be you that finds her, because you owe her for not being there when she disappeared in the first place. But in reality, that’s not what she needs. What she needs is for this investigation to have our undivided attention. And we can’t have that if you get caught working with us and we have to explain what an international fugitive was doing, unreported, in our care.”

He looked torn, staring aimlessly ahead again. Despite her understanding for how heavy this was, Natasha was simply relieved to see him emoting somehow. It showed that he was coming down from the unfeeling resolve of the Winter Soldier. For now. 

He held his mouth open as if to say something long before he actually did. “I…I would have stayed. If she wanted me to. If she wanted…”

Natasha didn’t know if he was referring to staying behind on the mission he just left for with Steve, or if he meant something else. Evidently, something had happened between him and Wanda that had made him consider leaving the safety of the team, to the point of mentioning it to Steve. It was something she knew needed to be talked about, but for now, she didn’t think they had time to spare to really focus on it. 

“Stay for her, now,” Natasha implored, continuing on as if she was truly convinced he meant staying behind on the recent mission, and nothing more. “If you avoid arrest, and we can avoid the fallout from it, that saves us more of the time we need to locate her. You can help, so long as you stay here for it. Away from the spotlight, or any other place in the city where you might be discovered. Do you understand?”

He hesitated. Natasha felt her skin prickle with impatience. “If she needs me—”

“We’ll call you in. But for now, we need you to stay in the shadows. Do you understand?”

She needed to hear him say he understood her reasoning. That he understood the risks that came with letting him loose in the field for this case, and why they couldn’t entertain those risks. Especially with their team reduced to only Steve, Tony, and her. 

She didn’t get a chance to hear him say it. Instead, she heard Tony’s voice calling her from across the garage. “Romanoff! Romanoff!”

Natasha jerked upright. She floundered for a second, torn between tending to Tony or getting confirmation from Bucky that he wasn’t going to let his emotions get the best of him and do something potentially risky in his own search for Wanda. 

Ultimately, she turned away from Barnes and began stalking down the jet’s ramp with a simple order of, “Wait here.” 

Once outside the aircraft, she saw Tony on the other side of the garage, jogging towards her with a tablet haphazardly swinging around in his hand. As they neared each other halfway, Natasha couldn’t help but let some of her irritation for his dishonesty of before bleed into her tone. “What is it?”

“You said the dog was with her, right? Or she went after the dog, or whatever.”

“Yeah…”

“Well.” Tony paused to unlock the tablet in his hand. “Tell me if you recognize…” he turned the device around for Natasha to see the screen, “her.”

It took Natasha’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dull, grainy image that had clearly been blown up to fit the StarkPad screen. But then she instantly recognized the bright fur coat, the dark eyes, and the smile-like expression of the panting dog in the picture. 

_ Luna. _

Natasha took the tablet from him, gaze fixed on the portrait. “Where did this come from?”

“Rollins Animal Hospital. They just called the Tower’s business number—I guess it was the number the training academy put on her tag. I had Jarvis pull up their website to make sure they were real, and sure enough, that image just went up under their Found Animals column. Complete with information on _ where _ she was found.”

Natasha gave a breathy sigh, feeling almost faint with her relief. It was probably premature, given how small this development was in their grander search for Wanda, but at least it was something connected to her. 

They had their first lead.

* * *

The walls of the plane rattled Wanda’s world again, jolting her out of her hazy in-between state of being tired and too anxious to fall asleep. The ground lurched more violently than ever before, and she could feel the touch of warm, stuffy air from the rest of the cabin as one of the doors to her cage flapped open. Then the ground smoothed out, having obviously reached _ actual _solid ground. 

They were landing.

Wanda felt along the bottom edge of the wall next to her, searching for the ajar door. She managed to locate and bring it semi-closed again just as the aircraft rolled to a halt. She stayed there, huddled in the corner between one of the walls and the doors, holding the latter closed for what felt like forever as she tensely waited for someone to come for her. 

Eventually, she felt the world shift again. This time, sunlight bled into her enclosure, momentarily disorienting her after so long of being deprived of it. It shone through four horizontal windows placed on either side of the box with bars running through them. One of the windows was right above her, roughly a head taller than her when she was standing, which explained why she hadn’t felt it there before. It also meant she couldn’t see through it as she stayed kneeling on the floor, holding the left-hand door closed as best she could. 

But she could hear. The surface activity of several minds finally flooded into her telepathy’s ear, too busy for her to locate an individual among them to hone in on. She could hear them physically too, milling about and talking amongst themselves with an air of tension and unwelcome commands. There was also the sound of some large machinery, its motor humming loudly as it moved nearby. 

Wanda’s muscles went taut with alarm as she noticed the shadows of people moving in the edges of the door around her fingertips. She even held her breath as she heard someone draw close enough for her to make out their conversation with the others. 

“…just tell her once she gets the tracking implant online again, the Asset will come running over here.”

The witch didn’t catch the second voice’s response, for she promptly became caught up with her own thoughts. Was that why she was here? For no other reason than to lure James out of hiding? Why shoot at her brother then? Had they been aiming for her?

No, they’d had plenty of chances to kill her between shooting at Pietro and stuffing her on a plane. Especially when she fell unconscious. 

No, she was bait for the Winter Soldier. Maybe even a direct link to him, if she was the one they were referring to when they spoke of figuring out how to get her tracker online again. Pietro was just collateral damage. 

Her heart felt heavy at the memory of Pietro being shot down right beside her. It was a clear indicator of the lengths this group was willing to go to in order to achieve what they wanted. And from what she was hearing, they surely had some affiliation with Hydra, for they knew of her connection to James, as well as her tracking implant. And if the Winter Soldier was the one they actually wanted, then she knew they would have no qualms about hurting her—or even him—to get whatever they wanted from him.

She startled when a noisy bang came from the other side of the door she was huddled against. Then, with her free hand, she braced herself against the floor as her cage began to move, only to abruptly stop shortly after the bang sound was heard.

“Wait, wait!” a new voice was calling. “What is that?”

A split second after he finished speaking, Wanda realized what had been smacked against the door: the metal bar that had formerly been keeping it closed. From the inside, she’d had no way of putting it back into place, or masking the fact that it had partially bent in her original effort to escape. It must have still been hanging on the side of her cage, clearly displaying that she had made such an effort. 

Soft pats could be heard from the other side of her door. Hands groping against it, presumably grasping the metal bar. If they resecured it, Wanda knew she wouldn’t have another chance to escape until she reached wherever they wanted to take her. 

She couldn’t stand to be held prisoner again. Much less for the purpose of being leverage against James.

The first voice shouted something indistinct. It was masked by his growing distance from the door, and by the scrape of Wanda’s boots against the floor as she scrambled to her feet. She wasted not a second, ramming her shoulder against the door with all of her newly-discovered super-soldier strength. She immediately tumbled out of her cage, the sudden exposure to full, proper lighting disorienting her all over again. 

Just before she fell, she felt the impact of at least two bodies clanging against the door, getting knocked down just as she stumbled to the ground outside herself. It was thankfully a short fall, for her cage was only on a cart and not yet loaded onto the huge truck in front of her. She landed on one knee a few yards away from said truck, barely allowing herself to process the burst of pain that shot up the leg she had landed on before she was scrambling to stand. 

Surrounding her former enclosure was a surprisingly small group of people. No more than a dozen of them, dressed in deceptively casual, albeit suspiciously matching clothing. Only half of them had guns strapped to their thighs, and even less actually pulled out said firearms to point at her. 

Everyone froze in their place. Wanda needed the moment simply to catch her breath, shoving down the franticness of her heartbeat as it pounded in her ears. She had figured out that the amount of adrenaline in her body correlated with how responsive her scarlet was in her current condition. She needed her scarlet to pace itself, or else it would risk overheating her entire system again. She couldn’t afford to let that happen again. Not now that she knew what these people wanted from her. And most certainly not here, in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, with only a warehouse, a small cargo plane, a truck, and miles upon miles of flat grassland around them. At least in New York, Pietro and the park civilians had seen her, and could lead her teammates to where she had last been. Here, she was on her own. 

While the witch surveyed her surroundings, her captors remained motionless, save for a few uncertain, silent glances at each other. Those with their guns pointed up looked particularly shaken, their minds ticking rapidly with anxious confusion. Wanda’s own mind clicked with a darkly comforting realization. _ They can’t shoot me. They need me. _

She knew she was in no position to test her luck. But she did it anyways, taking a bold step forward. The people closest to her shrank backward, one of which was a startlingly tall man with short black hair that had a gun up. Wanda held his gaze, in particular. Wordlessly daring him to actually threaten her with it. In her periphery, she saw the rest of the group merely wince, but otherwise, they didn’t move an inch. 

She chanced another step forward. This time, it sparked an even more rapid turning of thoughts for someone behind her. She figured it was whoever yelled, “Don’t shoot! Don’t—!”

Suddenly, arms wrapped around her from behind. Her first instinct was to grab them, having grown accustomed to her scarlet immediately jumping to her aid and pushing off any touch its host didn’t want. But alas, all that appeared was a faint glow to the veins in her wrists. Fortunately, those around her obediently refrained from opening fire. However, they did close in like a swarm of flies around her and her captor, commands being thrown at each other too wildly for her to make out any one decision of what they were going to do to keep her restrained.

Regardless, the witch didn’t let them entertain the notion for long. The man holding her had no gun, but rather a hand-knife in a holster at his side (not unlike one James had in his field uniform). She floundered for a half-second to reach it, swiftly yanking it out of its sheath. In the heat of the moment, she nearly missed the familiar heat of her scarlet finally stirring into action, sparking into an external presence. She willed it to wrap around the hilt of the hand-knife, then used it drop the blade neatly, yet forcefully, into his thigh. He loosened his hold on her with a sharp cry of pain, and Wanda managed to knock him off of her altogether by slamming the back of her head into his face the way Natasha had taught her. He went down at that, although Wanda thought quickly enough to grip the handle of the knife in his leg and pull it out for her own use.

Wanda slashed blindly at the next person that attempted to grab her. Without the heavy padding of Hydra’s standard uniforms, she was able to see the cut the blade made through the clothing and even skin, creating a diagonal line across their chest that promptly became lined with a vibrant red. After ducking the blade down for a moment, she then rammed into the person with her shoulder. They didn’t go down, but were a usable human shield against the cluster of their colleagues that had now reached them. 

Wanda was able to stab the person behind her shield in their stomach before her arm was yanked to the side by someone else. Another soul grabbed her opposite wrist, though her scarlet seemed to burn them, making them recoil immediately. Still, the fleeting moment of panic from thinking she would be overpowered awakened another adrenaline-fueled enhancement within her. The remnants of the super-soldier serum in her. 

With her newly freed hand, Wanda grabbed her other assailant by the back of their collar. Despite the weight of something even her scarlet would have made her struggle with in the past, she now hurled the person over her shoulder with barely any effort at all. The stranger’s body slammed down on her former shield, and accidentally kicked another one of their colleagues in the face on the way down. The latter was only briefly stunned, but their moment of uselessness was enough for Wanda to reach for the gun on his hip. Her scarlet helped her halfway through, eating away at the holster’s very being and suspending the firearm in midair for Wanda to take while the rest of the gun’s owner’s form fell out of reach. She held up the newly-acquired weapon, immediately causing pause from her attackers. One other person held up their own handgun a mere two feet from Wanda’s body, though Wanda knew it was an empty threat. 

Still, it filled her with fear to be so close to getting shot in the chest. Again.

Her moment of hesitation proved to be costly. A woman to Wanda’s left shoved her wrist, the surprise of it causing her hold on the gun to loosen. Wanda wasn’t able to catch the firearm as it fell, for two more figures grabbed each of her arms, this time from behind. Thinking quickly, she used them as unwitting support for herself as she raised her legs, pressing them together and kicking the chest of the woman who had made her drop her weapon. It only knocked her backwards a few steps, but it was enough to give Wanda the space she needed to regain her footing and twist around, pushing her scarlet to grow hotter, burning the pair that had a hold on her arms and forcing them to instinctively let go of her. While they processed the pain wrought on their bare hands, Wanda reached back for the handgun she had dropped. It had gone briefly forgotten on the ground, so she was easily able to summon it back into her grasp with the help of her extended scarlet touch. 

“Shit,” Wanda muttered under her breath. Her scarlet was starting to feel _ too _hot again. She couldn’t afford to push it anymore.

At least now she had another weapon. There was another attempt to knock it out of her hand—seemingly by the same woman as before—though in her panic, Wanda shot them. The bullet travelled straight through the woman’s palm, striking the person behind her and spraying their face with blood. 

That effectively spooked the few people still standing at least a step away from Wanda. A man at the back of the crowd reached for his gun, prompting Wanda to shoot above his head in an effort to scare him into defeat as well. He flinched, ducked, and then pulled his own gun free anyways, aiming it at her. Something about the unhinged terror on his face made Wanda completely forget the fact that they were unallowed to shoot her. In the heat of the moment, it wasn’t too far-fetched to think he had forgotten too. 

Her scarlet’s next reaction was more immediate than it had been at any point so far. It materialized as thin, stringy wisps tangled around each hand. She seized the opportunity the moment it presented itself, holding tight on her definite weapon in one hand and distributing her more celestial weapon with a few calculated twitches of her second hand’s fingers. She worked swiftly with the latter to put down the few remaining adversaries she had, incapacitating them by pulling nonsensical, dream-like hallucinations to the forefront of their minds. She only braved such a task for a few remaining persons, for she was still frightened beyond belief that it would be the final straw for her powers. That they would drop her like they had in Central Park. 

Luckily, she seemed to have inflicted enough damage to her adversaries to keep them down. She didn’t waste any time to fully appraise her efforts. Instead, she snuffed out her scarlet altogether and scrambled backwards, still holding on tightly to her stolen handgun. She scurried towards the truck, feeling increasingly light with relief as she discovered that not only was the door unlocked, but the keys were there on the driver seat. Upon hauling herself up and setting her handgun on the seat beside it, Wanda grabbed the keys and plopped down in the driver’s seat. The truck obediently rumbled to life when she inserted the key to its designated slot, its entire frame oscillating slightly beneath her. 

The motion, coupled with the downslide from her adrenaline during the melee seconds before, turned out to be that final straw for her body.

Wanda fumbled to turn the truck off. When the absence of the vehicle’s shaking didn’t do anything to assuage her, she hurriedly turned in her seat, shoving the door open as far as it would go and leaning over to retch onto the driveway tarmac below. She heaved for a long while, and harder than she had the day before, making her wonder if it was a result of morning sickness, or if was from her overexerting her powers, or even a reaction to the scent of the blood she had shed. Perhaps it was a mixture of each. 

When the episode was over, Wanda tucked herself back into the security of the truck, closing the door beside her with her arms shaking. After wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she gripped the steering wheel and rested her head against it, finally taking a moment to process what had just happened. What she had done, and what she was _ doing. _

Could she really steal a truck when she didn’t know where she was, let alone where she should go? She didn’t think it safe to go back to Stark Tower. Evidently, Hydra knew she was there now. She couldn’t risk them finding out James was hiding there, too, by following her to him, just as they had been plotting to use her to lead James to them. Even if she didn’t go home, it appeared as though Hydra would figure out a way to locate her, given what they’d said about getting her tracker online again. She didn’t know how they would override the secondary device that had been designed by _ the _ Tony Stark, but she had learned long ago not to underestimate Hydra in any fashion. Hell, she wouldn’t put it past them to be keep tabs on this very truck when it didn’t arrive at its originally determined destination, considering their desire to have their hands in everything, including their fellow agents’ plans.

The witch sighed heavily, feeling the weight of her circumstances like a physical burden on her shoulders. But then she sucked in another breath, this time schooling herself to take measured, easing breaths. That effectively calmed her thoughts as well as her heart rate, allowing her to recognize a rational course of action in the midst of all of the unknowns around her. She knew for certain that she had to get away from here before her would-be captors recovered from their injuries. She knew she had to find out where they had taken her. She knew she had to find a way to get rid of Hydra’s tracking tech inside her altogether. And she knew—though it was a distressing thought to acknowledge—that she should probably keep her distance from her loved ones until she was confident that their enemies had no way of following her to find them. 

With those tentative goals in mind, Wanda restarted the truck. Then, she drove forward, searching for a main road that would lead her somewhere out of sight of this decrepit warehouse and small aircraft runway. Somewhere away from her would-be captors. And even when she reached that pseudo-safe distance, she refused to let herself look back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for a brief description of blood and self-harm. Nothing too dark or graphic, but just a precaution for those who are senstivie to such content at any level.

Luna had been found in Brooklyn. She had been caught running around at a shipping terminal in the Red Hook neighborhood, not far from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. She had been stopped by a few of the dock workers there, but it was one known as Benicio “Everyone-Calls-Him-Benny” de la Vega who had actually dropped her off at the animal hospital. 

That was who Natasha came looking for, with Tony as her last minute tag-along. Perhaps he, like her, had grown tired of staring at the same couple of screens for hours on end. Not that he would admit it out loud, given how he’d been essentially tiptoeing around her ever since confessing that he’d inadvertently complicated their search. He even continued to work from his phone after they arrived at the dock, first checking in on the tracker’s data, and then taking some phone call Natasha hadn’t paid much attention to as she took out her own device. 

Seeing how it was taking the dock manager several minutes to find Benny, Natasha thought it worthwhile to take out a phone of her own while they waited. That is, the burner phone she always kept on hand for contacting Hill and Fury. Though it was more likely Hill was the one monitoring the line rather than Fury. Natasha could just sense that it was the former deputy director of SHIELD who responded to her message of “we need help” with the blunt reply of, “about Maximoffs?”

It was anybody’s guess whether that question came because the twins’ place among the Avengers had recently become such an infamous topic of debate, or because news of the shooting had already reached her. Natasha wouldn’t put it past her to know about them losing track of Wanda, despite it having been only a few hours since the Avengers themselves deemed their teammate missing. 

“The hospital’s letting us transfer Pietro,” Tony announced suddenly, lowering his phone from his ear. “Only on the condition, quote, unquote ‘we utilize better resources to accommodate his unusual metabolism.’ I can have Happy make sure he gets there alright. He’s already in that area from getting the dog.”

“Good,” Natasha said simply. “What about progress with Jarvis?”

“Still coming.” Tony tapped at a few things on his phone. “He’s starting to give me attitude.”

“How so?” Knowing both Tony and his AI, that could mean anything from Jarvis smart-mouthing Tony with unnecessary comments to having legitimate, unexpected technical difficulties.

“Every now and then, whenever I start to map out a potential route, the system gives me error, saying there’s interference. I’ve got no idea how, seeing how it’s unlikely an _ in-body _ tracking implant can pick up radio or whatever the hell it is.”

Natasha hummed in thought.

“I’m pretty sure it’s nothing,” Tony added quickly, pocketing his phone and crossing his arms over his chest. “Probably just bugging out after I’ve disabled the system so many times in such a short time frame.”

_ That better be all it is, _ Natasha thought with a short sigh. If one more hurdle had arisen now, it would have surely been the last straw for her sanity. 

Finally, a young man that resembled how the dock manager had described Benny jogged into view. He was small compared to his co-workers, barely scraping the same height as Tony, with similar dark, curly hair and the first traces of a goatee (also like Tony’s) forming around his mouth. He bounded up to the two Avengers like an excited pup, instantly offering his hand and a wide grin. 

“Mr. Stark,” he greeted, shaking Tony’s hand. He paused as he turned to take Natasha’s, in what she recognized in people who didn’t know how to address her for a first meeting. He settled on, “Ma’am.”

“Hi,” she returned. 

“What, uh…what can I do for you?” He began to wring his hands nervously, as if it had just now occurred to him what implications could come from having two members of a globally recognized intelligence team wanting to speak with him.

Natasha did the explaining, as per an earlier agreement with Tony that she was better suited for handing out lies (or as she preferred to call them, half-truths), so that they could keep the Maximoffs and Barnes’s full place in this affair a secret. “It’s our understanding that you were the one who turned in a lost dog to the Rollins Animal Center this morning. That dog belonged to a new program we’ve been hosting at Stark Industries, and we were wondering how she managed to wander so far from the New York office building. Did you see anything unusual when or where you originally found her? Something that might have attracted her here?”

_ Someone that may have brought her here, _ is what she really meant. 

Benny rubbed the back of his neck, looking around them uncertainly. “No, nothing that really sticks out as unusual. A couple of us just kinda saw her running around there.”

He pointed at something behind Natasha. There were several rows of large shipping containers stacked on top of one another, blocking the view of the East River sitting past the dock. Benny began walking that way, with the two Avengers following him. “You see, we had an exchange earlier this morning with these zoo workers. A couple of bears or something needed to see some sort of specialty vet at another zoo further up the river. When the dog showed up, we thought she was just someone’s housepet that got loose and came over here because she smelled the animals.”

He stopped in front of the two rows of shipping containers closest to the edge of the dock, vaguely gesturing to the area between them. “We just happened to notice her running around here. My buddy and I rounded her up, and he grabbed her long enough for me to read the tag. That was about it.”

Natasha kept a careful eye on the young man as he explained what happened, wary of any signs that there was more to the story than he was letting on. However, his demeanor and tone of speaking seemed like he was nothing but genuine and innocent. 

Upon exchanging a look and a quick nod with Tony, she wordlessly excused herself to wander further in between the two containers where Luna had been found. Meanwhile, Tony slung an arm around Benny’s shoulders, subtly ushering him in the other direction under the guise of telling him about the rewards available to him for finding their dog. Natasha inspected the area for something—_anything_—else that could hint at what brought Luna here, or at least attracted her here from wherever she had come from. Maybe even a sign of whatever had caused her to be separated from Wanda. However, to her frustration, it was hard to make out anything while the afternoon sun was hanging behind one of the shipping containers, making for poor lighting between them. 

Natasha ran her hands through her hair with a short huff, torn between the cynical thought that they’d hit a dead end and the voice in the back of her mind that sounded suspiciously like Steve insisting she not give up, that she be as stubborn as he would be and refuse to leave until she found something they could use.

“Oh, wait!” Benny suddenly called, waving at Natasha for attention. He barely waited for her to reach his and Tony’s side before he continued. “We did have something kind of weird happen this morning. When the folks from the zoo came by with their animals, we let ‘em borrow some of our boxes—you know, so that the animals could have a little more wriggle room during their trip? But then after the exchange, when the zoo guys were loading up their own stuff to take back, they said they were missing a crate. Had this whole blow-out with our manager about it. At the time, we all just thought he’d gotten confused and sent their stuff to get stored away with ours, because…” 

He leaned in closer, as if worried his manager would overhear. “Well, he’s kinda gettin’ up there in age, if you get my drift. But now that we’ve all had some time to think it over—or at least, I have—I kinda thought it weird he would mix up something like that. He’s one of those guys that’s done the same thing his whole life—knows everythin’ about everythin’ that goes on around here. And he’s never acted confused about anythin’ else, for that matter.”

“So, you think a whole, empty animal crate just went missing?” Natasha questioned.

“Well…yeah, maybe.” The dock worker gestured to the large shipping containers behind her. “The ones they brought were about…maybe a third of the size of these ones. So, it’s not like it would’a been easy to mistake it for one of ours.”

Natasha’s first thought was to dismiss it as a simple mix-up. But then she heard that voice in the back of her mind again, this time urging her to look deeper. To consider all possibilities, even for the sole reason of building hope for a stronger lead. 

The spy looked over her shoulder, re-appraising the metal boxes there. Even at a fraction of the size, she supposed they _ would _ be big enough, but also inconspicuous for transferring large cargo. Maybe even a human being… 

“Maybe wherever it went,” Benny went on behind her, “that’s what your dog was chasing? At least, by the time she made it over here.”

“Perhaps,” Natasha agreed distractedly, her mind still working rapidly with her own speculation. Turning back to the dock worker, she asked, “If it was someone here that misplaced the crate, how would you all go about finding it?”

“Well, since the zoo folks didn’t make that big a deal of it, we just thought we’d leave it be,” Benny admitted honestly. “But if it helps you guys in some way—any way at all—I can ask around and see if I can find out more about what actually happened. We do keep track of how many containers come and go, and how many get stored in what sectors, so I’m sure I can pick up whether a mysterious extra got listed somewhere, and kinda retrace its path from there.”

Natasha offered him one of her best charming smiles. “That would be a big help. Thank you.”

Benny nodded, stuttering a bit under her coquettish attention. “OK…OK! I’m…I’ll get right on that, then! If, um…if that’s all you two needed, of course.”

Tony clapped him on the back in a friendly gesture, as if they’d known each other for years. He began his subtle method of ushering the younger man away again. “No, no, that’ll do, my good sir. Keep us posted through that email you gave me. And of course, we’ll keep you posted on our end about the reward, because really, it’s gonna be a huge help to have our pup back. Keep up the good work, kid.”

Natasha tuned out their conversation as Benny rambled an excited farewell to her and Tony both, then hurried back the way he’d come, presumably to investigate further like he’d promised. Tony watched him go for a beat before making his way back to her side, bobbing a bit on his feet to make their quiet conversation appear unassuming to the casual observers around them. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“There’s a chance they won’t find that crate,” Natasha replied. “But we will…” 

“From a third party that didn’t steal _ just _ that,” Tony finished for her.

“Mmm. It’s a bit of a stretch.”

“But not impossible.”

Natasha gave a relenting hum to that. Although, given the lives they led, she supposed nothing was really impossible anymore.

She tipped her head towards the phone still in one of Tony’s hands. “Has this area shown up on the map?”

“I already checked. So far, we _ did _ get several hits along the bridge leading here.”

Natasha dared to hope again. That was promising. 

Tony looked down at the phone, as if to check the tracker data again. However, as he read whatever had come up on the display, his brow furrowed in bemusement. “Happy says they just got Pietro back to the Tower.”

His puzzled tone made Natasha’s previous feelings of apprehension rise up again. “That’s good, right?”

“Yeah. Miss Hilda’s already seeing to him and everything. But Happy says she asked about us.”

“You mean the new nurse? Asked what?”

Tony looked up, meeting her eye for the first time since she’d snapped at him a couple of hours ago. “Apparently, she has something she wants to talk to you about, but she’s not detailing what. Happy says she seems really antsy, though.”

Natasha’s first thought was of her last encounter with the Maximoff brother, and how he’d been the one to mention his sister’s powers had been behaving abnormally. Hilda was most likely the only one who had any clue as to what could have caused it after reviewing Wanda’s health just the day before. With any luck, she and Pietro were finally willing to fully disclose with Natasha exactly what that abnormality was. 

“Is that something we should be worried about?” Tony asked when she spent a second too long in her own thoughts.

Natasha didn’t answer him. At the moment, she felt too pressed for time to bother. 

“Tell him to let her know we’re on our way,” she commanded, barely waiting for the words to leave her mouth before she was pacing back between the shipping crates, travelling through the shadows towards their home.

* * *

Wanda had been driving for hours. And yet, the road before her continued to stretch on in benign steppes and nothingness. A few times, she passed by small farmhouses and barns, which were each made even smaller by their distance from the road. Aside from those homes, there was no sign of any life around her, much less a main road that led to greater civilization. 

Every minute that Wanda’s journey went prolonged was excruciating, driving a proverbial thorn of anxiety further and further into her side. An anxiety that the agents she had left behind would follow this straightforward road back to her. Or that another group of them would realize their plans had gone amiss and track down her stolen truck. Perhaps they would even manage to get her implant back online the way they had planned to, and trace her directly. If they managed that, she knew there would be no point in running at all. 

She had no way of telling exactly how much time had passed, but she knew it had to have been only a few hours into her drive when her skin began to crawl with that unsettling feeling of being watched. Practically speaking, that idea was probably completely groundless (at least, this soon into her escape it would be). But with her anxiety mounting, and no one around to talk her down, she suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled the truck over at a random place on the side of the road, stuffed the handgun from the passenger seat into the back of her jeans, and abandoned the vehicle altogether.

She did have the foresight to leave the truck while another farmhouse was in sight. She kept her eyes on it the entire time she crossed the land on foot. To her frustration, the building seemed to creep further and further away with every step, fueling her unease more and more for being out in the open. 

Eventually, she finally drew close enough to the house to make out some of its finer details, such as a small barn of its own lurking behind it. The house was made out of stone, and the barn from wood, both of which were matching dark grey colours. Wanda approached the house first, casting her telepathic reach ahead of her to search for any residents. None could be detected, but that could very easily be a result of the tangible building between her and the potential subjects. Although, when she peered through the nearest windows, it looked as if there truly wasn’t anyone inside. She could see a dining room and part of a den, the latter of which had the typical clutter of a home that had been lived in recently. The dining table even had a plate of food that appeared to have been left there not too long ago. Some tapping on the windows and even going around the corner to knock on the front door revealed that whoever did live here was out at the current moment.

Wanda didn’t waste any more time with the house. In all honesty, she was relieved no one was there, for it meant less civilians could get dragged into the situation with her. She turned to head towards the barn next, figuring it would be less conspicuous for her to break into that building. On her way there, she passed by a large pen full of pigs, two of which stepped closer to her with their snouts raised in curiosity of her presence there. 

Just as she had been hoping, the barn was easier to get into. The door was only secured by an iron latch and a simple padlock. Either the residents of the farm had forgotten to lock it, or Wanda’s newfound enhanced strength kicked in again, for it came undone with just one easy pull. Not wanting to lose the padlock, she stuffed it in her jeans’ pocket for the time being. Then she pushed open the heavy wooden door, leaving it ajar just wide enough for her to slip through and receive some light from the sun, but not immediately give away to passersby that someone had broken in. With the limited light from the slim opening, she couldn’t entirely see the contents of the barn. The scent of animals was strong inside of it. She could easily imagine part of that was her, though, given how long she’d been inside of that metal crate. 

The limited lighting did grant her a view of a tall, rusted tool chest there by the door. Wanda immediately went to it and began rifling through the drawers in search of something she could use. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for as she searched amidst the cluster of tools and random items. She didn’t know, that is, until she actually saw it. It was in the third drawer from the top, appearing at first to be a plain handle. Although, when the witch reached for it, her thumbnail scraped against a fold in its side. She thumbed at it without really thinking of it, causing a sleek blade to slide out into view. 

Her skin rose with gooseflesh at the immediate thought that came to her. It was such a risky, foolhardy, and violent idea. 

And yet, its promise to assuage some of her anxieties about being followed made it painfully tempting. The longer she thought it over, the more she realized that if she truly wanted to do it, she would either have to do it here and now, or risk not getting another chance anytime soon. 

Once again, her ultimate decision was made from the lack of anyone around to talk her out of it. 

Wanda went back to the barn door, lightly pushing it to grant the outside light more room to show her the inside of the small wood building. She then knelt on the floor in the middle of the now large ray of light and got to work. 

She removed her jacket, exposing her shoulders to the strikingly cold air, and draped it across her lap for the time being. Her hands went to the bottom of her blouse next, using the hunting knife to saw away at a long strip along the front hem. She spared herself a quick second to use the strip of cloth to wipe the blade clean of whatever else it had been used for, even though it was likely a useless effort without so much as clear water to help. When she felt remotely satisfied, she wrapped the strip of cloth around her left palm for safekeeping. 

In spite of no one being around at the moment to hear her, she bunched up one end of her jacket and shoved the olive green material into her mouth. Then she flexed her arm, mentally calling to her scarlet. As expected, it stirred uneasily through her system without actually materializing. She pushed at it a little more, flexing her left arm until her powers became more aggravated. She could feel them starting to burn in her blood. Particularly where she knew a foreign object was implanted in her left shoulder. The more her blood burned around it, the more she was able to envision it in a specific spot inside of her. 

With that image in mind, Wanda continued to summon her scarlet until a few thin, wispy strands of psionic energy slithered into view between the fingers of her right hand. In that same hand, she had been holding the hunting knife. When the tendrils of scarlet came into contact with it, they smoothly raised the knife handle into the air. Wanda twitched her fingers, willing the scarlet to carry the blade higher into the air and to her side, at level with where she could feel the rest of her powers honing in on a foreign presence in her upper arm. 

She inhaled deeply. She thought of the people hunting her. Of what was at stake if they traced her tracking device back to her. She closed her eyes. And she thrusted the blade forward.

Her subsequent yelp was effectively muffled by the part of the jacket pinned between her teeth. Pain erupted in her left arm where the hunting knife had embedded itself in her flesh, its cold steel contrasting viciously with the protective, heated wave of scarlet that swarmed her blood in that area. The conflicting sensations angered her system, rising in her head as nausea and vertigo. She stubbornly pushed back those feelings, refusing to lose sight of what she was doing now that she had started. 

The hunting knife fell to the floor. It must have been pushed out by her scarlet. She didn’t even realize it had been slipping from the newly-created wound until blood from the unplugged opening began dripping down her arm. Her veins surrounding the wound began to vibrantly glow, working quickly to heal their host. 

Wanda acted before they could finish, channeling as much of her scarlet as possible into being. This time, it was surprisingly obedient. She guessed that was a side effect of it being partially preoccupied with preserving the injured skin. Her fingers weren’t even purposefully twitching to guide it anymore; they were merely shaking from the strain of working through the simultaneous stinging pain of the self-inflicted wound and burn of her powers rather than attempting to direct the latter in any particular direction. Yet, the tendrils of scarlet that managed to externalize were perfectly dutiful as they followed her unspoken instruction to seep inside the mess of severed tissue. 

She could feel the phantom sensation of something solid brushing against her fingertips when the hex reached what she was looking for. With a twitch of her middle and ring fingers, and a backwards jerk of her wrist, she could feel the hex wrap around the implant. A few repeats of those actions prompted the hex to recede with its new find in tow. It was an unsettling sensation, feeling not only her scarlet moving within her, but also a tangible piece of metal. She could _ hear _the implant moving beneath the surface of her skin, following a shaky path as the hand she was using to manipulate it shook as well. 

After what felt like hours, the tracking implant shot out and into her waiting hand as if pulled by a powerful magnet. She grunted at the sensation, gritting her teeth impossibly tighter into her jacket. A small spray of blood scattered over her arm and into the dirt beside her from how suddenly the tracker left her. 

She allowed herself a brief second to ride out the stinging pain in her arm, rocking herself a little through it. In her pain, her scarlet acted on its own accord yet again. It slithered into being at her palm, eating away at the miniscule cube there, as well as the Stark-issued microchip clinging to it. Within seconds, the device was reduced to nothing but wiring and tiny bits of metal that scattered uselessly along the floor. 

Once her scarlet receded, Wanda continued. She unwrapped the strip of clothing on her opposite palm, and singlehandedly fastened it around the newly created cut. It wasn’t at all thick enough to fully stem the flow of spilling blood, but the double knot keeping it in place at least provided _ some _pressure. She found additional security in that it fixed snugly into place when she slipped her jacket back on. She knew there was more to be done if she wanted to keep such an injury safe from infection (and she wasn’t fully confident in her scarlet to take care of it at the moment), but it was the most she could do with the supplies around her.

She moved mechanically after that, feeling a trace of wooziness as she did. She pushed herself to her feet, hoping that by ignoring that sense of light-headedness, it would simply go away on its own. It didn’t work at first, but once she stepped back into the open air and took a few deep breaths, her senses began to clear. They _ had _to become clear, because she had to keep going. She couldn’t wait around long enough for the residents of the farm to find her, and she certainly couldn’t wait long enough for the agents that had brought her here to find her after inevitably finding their truck nearby. 

She needed to find out _ where she was. _ And how to find her way back home. She had to make sure those agents didn’t get what they wanted, that they didn’t find James. Because that’s what they did, they hunted people like wild animals, for malicious purposes, and they were ruthless about it, and they never stopped—this twisted game of cat and mouse never _ stopped, _ and she couldn’t keep her soldier safe, and—

_ Stop it. Stop it! _

Her breath hitched. Vaguely, she realized she was on the verge of leading herself into a fully-fledged panic attack. She couldn’t afford to let that happen. 

_ Have to keep going, _ she thought again. It was all she could _ let _ herself think. _ Keep going. _

She forced herself to take her next breath slowly. And the next. As she did, she folded the hunting knife still in one hand back into itself, and then pocketed it in her jeans. She also groped along the back of her waist, feeling for the handgun tucked into her jeans there. If anything were to go south—and if her scarlet failed her like it had in the park—she would at least have those. Just in case.

She re-fastened the lock in her other pocket back in place. And then finally, she began moving again. In a blur of determination and fear, she hurried around the barn and back into the vast expanse of grass, left with nothing more than hope that she would find safety and civilization soon.

* * *

The drive to Stark Tower was tense. Traffic delayed them, which was maddening. While Natasha drove, Tony continued to update the tracker’s data on his phone, and she could practically hear the frustration building and building within him.

“More interference?” Natasha asked at one point. 

“Yeah. It’s really started to slow down what little does manage to come through. Starting to piss me off. Might just break down and troubleshoot the whole system when we get back.”

Natasha sighed, empathizing with his ire, but choosing not to let him linger on it. At least, not when there was nothing to be done while they were both stuck in a car. “What else do you think could be causing it? Maybe there’s something more we can try.”

“If it’s not an overload error, then…” He trailed off with a slight shake of his head, clearly distressed that despite being as intelligent and well-versed with technology as he was, he couldn’t get something to work. Especially when they needed it most. “Then I don’t fucking know.”

Natasha chewed on the inside of her lip, glancing out the window as she gathered the words to admit what she’d been withholding. “What if something was wrong with her enhancements? Could that make them interfere with the readings?”

“Wrong, how?”

“I…I don’t know,” she answered with begrudging honesty. “It’s just something Pietro said when I saw him. That something was wrong, and she wasn’t feeling well, and that was the whole reason he encouraged them to leave the Tower in the first place. He thought fresh air might help her.”

Tony was silent for a beat as he digested that. “Well, if she wasn’t feeling well…I mean, she _ looked _ fine when they landed yesterday. Not like…you know, that last time.”

“Yeah,” Natasha agreed half-heartedly, half-distracted by the road ahead of her and the memory of sick Wanda had gotten last year. How the signs had been obvious then (even though at the moment they had all ignored it, assuming Wanda’s enhancements would resolve whatever was wrong on their own). How feverish, and pale, and lethargic their younger teammate had been. How sick Natasha, herself, had felt, as well, when she inhaled the same drug that had been planted in Wanda’s room. 

Then again, Wanda _ had _ looked uncomfortable during her uniform fitting. 

“I don’t think it was something as bad as that,” she thought aloud. “I _ hope _ it’s _ not. _ And I don’t think Barnes would have let her out of his sight if it was that noticeable, either.”

Now Tony was the one looking out the window as if stalling what needed to be said. “What if it wasn’t a physical thing?”

Natasha shot him a curious look. 

“Granted, this isn’t my area of expertise,” Tony went on, crossing his arms over his chest in discomfort. “But from what I could see while I was working on her tracking implant, those enhancements are hyper-sensitive to any source of stress—and I do mean _ any. _ If she was so much as nervous about a needle lying around, that stuff started making a big ol’ fuss on her charts. So, if something happened to bog her down mentally or emotionally, maybe that’s what her brother picked up on. Did Cap mention anything happened to Barnes? Or between Barnes and Wanda?”

“Just that he had waited until the last minute to tell her about him returning to the field.” Something in Natasha’s chest knotted up uneasily. “Well…there was that, and also something that came up about something else being off with Barnes, too. Apparently, on the actual mission, he was functioning just fine, but kept acting like something else was on his mind. Something that got them talking about him potentially leaving the Tower.”

“You mean, as in leave _ her?_”

“I…I guess so, yeah.”

For being the son of two of the former Winter Soldier’s victims, Tony remained impressively blank at the prospect of being rid of Barnes. “Dating an internationally wanted fugitive that now wants to leave the shelter we offered him to do God-knows-what would definitely be a stressful event,” he mused instead. “Think he ran it over with Wanda?”

Natasha considered it for a moment, more so than when Steve had first mentioned it to her a few hours ago. She didn’t know what to think…she didn’t _ know. _

Everything had seemed so normal just a day ago. Sure, at dinner, she had noticed Barnes was pretty reserved, but no more so than usual for him, especially without Wanda around as a social buffer. She hadn’t shown up at all, but Natasha had assumed it had been her simply recuperating after her medical check-up, given her sordid experience with such things. Barnes had gone to check on her and then leave for his data-mining mission with Steve just a few minutes after. Unless something had happened in those few short minutes, Natasha didn’t know when something between them could have happened that distressed her enough to disturb access to her scarlet. 

“Maybe at the vacation house,” she said.

“Maybe a shitty vacation blown out of proportion?” Tony suggested.

“But they seemed fine when they landed…”

Another beat of silence indicated Tony’s agreement. “Well, who knows? Maybe Maximoff’s getting better at being an actress. She does have you as a teacher, after all.”

Natasha didn’t know what to make of that. Fortunately, she didn’t have to at the moment, for they were finally approaching the Tower. The swarm of press that had surrounded the hospital where Pietro was sent had now migrated there, clamoring around the Tower like bees around their hive. Natasha had never been more grateful for the Tower’s parking area being underground, allowing them to circumvent the crowd. 

Tony wasted no time once they were parked, hustling out of the car and back upstairs, presumably to resume whatever he was still watching on his phone on his personal computer. Natasha wasn’t far behind him, though as they both headed upstairs, Natasha stopped by the medical ward in search of Nurse Hilda. And hopefully, on her way to find out more about whatever Wanda had been going through just before she disappeared.

The medical ward was surprisingly busy considering the lockdown protocol in place due to the recent incident. Getting caught up in the flow of foot traffic travelling this way and that through the hallway there felt like entering a flowing river. Fortunately, an abundance of staff members actually meant it was easier to find Hilda. Since she and Helen were both the heads of the departments there, they were the proverbial hearts of activity. Helen, herself, was roaming the hall as well. Apparently, she knew her co-worker had been asking for Natasha, for she directed the spy to where Hilda was without any prompting. 

Natasha found the Head Nurse through the door window of a medical suite at the very end of the ward. She was tending to Pietro. The Maximoff brother looked more with it now, though was still clearly tired from whatever the hospital had him hopped up on. He was watching Hilda adjust something on the side of his bed with bleary eyes. His gaze only cleared when he noticed Natasha at the door, which caused Hilda to notice her as well. The nurse held up a hand in a gesture to indicate she would be right there. She took a brief second to turn back to Pietro and tell him something that was inaudible through the door, and then she was scurrying over to meet Natasha outside. Once she’d closed the door behind her, she continued to walk down the hall back where Natasha had come, inciting the spy to follow her. 

“Thank you so much for coming over, Agent Romanoff,” Hilda said as they walked, even though she didn’t actually turn to face Natasha.

“I came as fast as I could.”

“I—no—yes, thank you!” the other red-haired woman stammered. Natasha had noticed that about her; that she tended to get flustered or anxious rather easily, especially around her work superiors, and would ramble on and on until someone else stopped her. It was no wonder Helen and Happy (and probably several others) had been able to tell whatever Hilda wanted to tell her was an urgent matter. “I would like to apologize for taking so long to get around to this myself—it took a while for the news to reach me. And then, there was a matter over whether I should consider it appropriate to violate patient confidentiality, but then Mr. Maximoff arrived and confirmed his sister was having issues with her enhancements, and so I…well, if I may?”

She turned suddenly, holding open the door to another room. Natasha obediently ducked inside, finding the new room to be the same exam room that Natasha and her teammates had been referred to for their basic medical evaluations. At the moment, it was free from any activity, which was a refreshing break from the bustle everywhere else in the medical ward. 

Natasha didn’t even wait for Hilda to close the door behind her this time. “So, Pietro mentioned something being off about her powers? Because he said something similar about it to me, too.”

“Yes, and I have…thoughts,” Hilda stated nervously. “You see, I took a look at each of your teammates like you requested, and the last one was Miss Maximoff yesterday, right before…this all happened. And we—I mean, I—did notice some changes in her system that I felt I could share with you because of how they were—well, they’re not _ just _ like yours, but they were similar to them.”

“Yes, and?” Natasha urged semi-patiently. This much information she had already figured a while ago, when Hilda had first joined their medical staff. Back then, Natasha had initially come to her with basic questions about her body, simply to gauge the nurse’s abilities firsthand. She hadn’t expected to actually discover something previously unknown about herself. That being, the physical damage done to her during the Red Room’s graduation ceremony had been healed by her exposure to Steve’s serum after she’d started sleeping with him. Considering her own, diluted version of an enhancing serum from the Red Room was similar to the enhancements Wanda had received through her scarlet, she had suspected the witch would have side effects like her, due to how similar Bucky’s enhanced physiology was to Steve’s. 

“I did a blood test on her to see how her enhancements were reacting to the changes,” Hilda continued, “and I noticed that the blood itself showed signs of a chemical change. So, I did a little more digging, and I realized there was a particular increase in levels of human chorionic gonadotropin, which are bodily changes consistent with pregnancy. I know it sounds far-fetched given Miss Maximoff’s medical history, but I ran a couple of extra blood tests to be sure, and they each—”

“Wait—I’m sorry, excuse me,” Natasha interrupted with a slight wave of her hand. “Are you saying…do you mean pregnancy, as in she…?”

Natasha trailed off. It was rare for her to feel so caught off-guard, let alone struggle this much to get her thoughts in order. To process what was being told.

Hilda, on the other hand, was suddenly at a loss for words as well. “I…I’m sorry, I don’t know how else to phrase it.”

As she floundered for a better response, it actually served to help Natasha’s line of thought. The fact that there was no other way to explain it proved there was nothing else it could mean. 

Wanda was pregnant. A member of their international, enhanced defense team was _ pregnant. _ It didn’t seem possible. Not after everything they knew Wanda had been put through physically. Not given the life she and the team lived, as a whole. 

And yet, Natasha believed it wholeheartedly to be true. Probably because she knew it was possible for such a bodily change to occur after facing her own experience with it. Hell, this could have happened to _ her. _

She wasn’t brave enough to consider that further. 

_ Barnes… _ Suddenly, the intensity of his shock when he found out Wanda was gone made more sense. So did the pair’s strange behavior for such a brief period between their arrival home and her disappearance. 

So did the tracking implant’s sudden glitching.

Oh, God, her _ powers. _

“I have her file here,” Hilda was saying when Natasha tuned her voice back in. “Of course, I normally respect the rules about patient confidentiality, but circumstances being what they are—and if it at all influences your search for her—”

Hilda flinched as Natasha interrupted her again, this time with a particularly sharp, vulgar Russian curse. Rather than excuse herself, or at least assure her that her frustration wasn’t with Hilda herself, Natasha lunged forward and grabbed the nurse’s wrist. She began not-so-gently hauling her away with nothing more than a hasty, “Come with me.”

Her grip wasn’t tight enough that Hilda couldn’t break free if she wanted to. Fortunately, the Head Nurse seemed to understand Natasha’s need for her (or was at least too stunned to do anything but go along with her), for she stayed with her all throughout their trek back into the hall and towards the elevator at the other end. Natasha didn’t let go of her until she had to direct the elevator to the floor she needed. Granted, she could have verbally told Jarvis where to take them, but she couldn’t quite muster a straight-enough thought to speak aloud. 

Before she knew it, she had reached the floor for Tony’s office, this time with Hilda willfully following her like a tentative shadow. The door between the floor entryway and Tony’s actual workshop had been left partially ajar, so Natasha wound up slamming it open even harder than intended. It was enough to startle Steve, who had apparently not only been in the room with Tony, but was also lingering right there by the doorway.

“I know what’s interfering with the tracker’s signal,” Natasha announced.

Tony was unfazed, simply staring at her from across the room where he was half-standing, half-leaning against his desk with his face resting in his palm. “Oh, do tell,” he said flatly, probably expecting it to be simply speculation like their last conversation mere minutes ago.

“Is it possible Wanda’s enhancements would become hyper-sensitive to the foreign implant if her entire system went through a chemical change?”

Tony thought it over for a moment, humming a little as he did. “I guess it’s possible. I wouldn’t know how we’d determine it for sure, though.”

Steve stepped forward a step to ask, “What’s this about?”

Natasha didn’t answer him. Instead, she turned to Hilda who was still lingering in the doorway a few steps behind her. “Tell them what you told me.”

“I…” Hilda’s eyes went wide at the command, throwing a lingering, hesitant glance at Steve. Despite being head of her department, Hilda was still a new addition to the Tower’s staff, and therefore, it hadn’t yet been disclosed with her that the Winter Soldier was secretly being harbored there. Which meant she probably thought that Steve was the only one there able to impregnate Wanda (an awkward scenario, given how she obviously knew about him and Nat, too). 

Hilda cleared her throat as she gathered some of her previous professional (albeit, still anxious) decorum, now pointedly avoiding looking at Steve to do so. “Well, I did a medical evaluation of Miss Maximoff yesterday, before the, um…event. And part of the procedure was a blood test. I actually ran quite a few tests, to be sure of the results, and each one came back with similar results showing a presence of hCG, which happens to be a hormone that appears during pregnancy.”

Silence fell over the room at that. A moment of pause that Natasha only allowed because she knew something like this needed to be processed. 

And processed, it was. Steve’s face went slack as it sunk in for him, followed by him sinking into the nearest chair he could find, over in a corner of the room. Once there, he ran a hand over his face as his thoughts continued to run, undoubtedly re-evaluating his last interactions with Wanda and Barnes (mostly Barnes, given they were away for their mission) just like Natasha had. Meanwhile, Tony was stock-still, which was usually an indicator that his mind was working rapidly. Too rapidly for even his hyper-vocal self to muster a witty response. 

Then suddenly, the inventor broke into laughter. A high-pitched, hysterical laugh that Natasha recognized as his nervous tic whenever he felt overwhelmed. The last time she’d heard it, they had all discovered the AI he invented had gone rogue and was determined to destroy the world. 

“Can you work around the interference now that you know what it is?” Natasha demanded, stalking closer to Tony. 

He held up a hand to stop her. “No, no. Give me a minute. I just need another minute to…laugh at our lives.”

“_Can _ you work around the interference now that you know what it is?” Natasha repeated impatiently. 

Tony inhaled sharply, clearly forcing himself to recoup in the span of just a second. After channeling his lingering agitation into his fingers by drumming them against the desk, he turned back to the computer beside him. “Maybe…maybe. _ Maybe._” 

Each iteration of the word sounded more and more frustrated. Then he was combing his fingers through his hair with a muttered curse. “Or maybe we’re better off just continuing the way we have been.”

Natasha wasn’t satisfied with that. The way they had been proceeding was too slow for her. Especially now that she had confirmation that Wanda’s enhancements—her main means of self-defense—were compromised. True, that had been an underlying fear ever since she had talked to Pietro, but a part of her had been able to brush it off then as merely the Maximoff brother’s intrinsically worried, overprotective nature. But now it was undeniable.

Apparently, Steve felt the same way. “With all due respect,” he said, his clipped tone betraying how much he was struggling to hold onto patience, “the way you have been working has gotten us barely anywhere all day. Are you sure there isn’t anything better we can try?” 

“I’m not trying to find something better, I’m trying to find the way that’s most _ careful,_” Tony retorted.

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her discomfort with the thought that came to her next. It was a cruel irony to have her and Steve be the ones to disregard caution in favor of faster results, while Tony was the only one trying to play it safe. But she couldn’t stop herself from voicing her suggestion. She was _ not _ going to let this go on long enough to be a repeat of the events from last year.

“What if we continue to use the tracker, but forego the cautionary step?” she proposed. 

Tony met her gaze with a hint of skepticism in his own. “You mean—”

“Get the tracker back online, and keep it on,” Natasha stated with more confidence than she truly felt for the idea. “Yes.”

Tony’s fingers went back to anxiously drumming against the surface of his desk, this time slower, almost calculated. As if he was trying to focus on the minute motion more than his contemplation for what Natasha was suggesting. “You know if I do that, we won’t be the only ones who can read it.”

“But we will be the only ones to think to check it after a year of inactivity,” Natasha returned quickly. 

Tony sighed uneasily, thinking it over a minute more. And another. Natasha grew more and more agitated, herself, the longer he did, growing fearful that he would actually reject her idea. She even mentally began preparing ways she could hack into the tracking implant’s system without him.

But Tony was nothing if not surprising.

“Pull up a chair,” he told her, voice suddenly shifting to detached nonchalance. “It’ll take a while for this shit to load after how much I messed with it these past several hours.”

Natasha felt herself relax a little. 

“How long is ‘a while’?” she asked with genuine patience this time. 

“Just a couple of minutes.”

Natasha nodded and stepped back to leave him to his work. She turned to face Steve, wholly prepared to ask him whether Barnes knew about Wanda’s pregnancy. At the last second, though, she realized that he had essentially answered that question already, back when he and Barnes first returned from their mission. 

_ They know something we don’t. _

“Find him,” she said instead, still too shaken from how quickly the entire situation had escalated to manage much else. 

Steve was still clearly reeling with her, but somehow, he was able to push it aside the instant she gave him that order. His only response was a slight nod of acknowledgement, and then he was turning away to find Barnes. 

Natasha watched him go, admittedly unsure what exactly she wanted from Barnes. He probably knew as much as they did at this point, considering how little time he spent with Wanda between her medical eval and his departure for the data-mining mission. If anything, Hilda (who was still hovering uncomfortably near the doorway) knew the most about how Wanda’s powers were compromised and how it could potentially affect their search for her. 

Regardless, Natasha wanted to bring in Barnes. If not for the sake of the search, than for his own sake, now that they knew what exactly he had been struggling with this whole time. And how much was at stake for him if they didn’t find anything soon. 

With Steve momentarily gone (and on his way back with the secret fugitive in their care), Natasha quickly thanked Hilda for her help and dismissed her. Once Hilda was gone as well, Natasha took advantage of the silence that fell over the room, pacing back and forth along the wall to continue processing the change in their circumstances. And also the fact that there was currently nothing productive she could do about it.

“Wait, what?”

Natasha turned to Tony, even though it seemed he was talking to himself. He had been working at his computer for just a few minutes as Natasha paced on the other side of the room. He mumbled some more to himself as she ventured back to his side of the workshop, picking up his shift into senseless expletives as she neared him. 

She didn’t like the sound of that. 

“What happened?” she questioned. Then, when he continued clicking at something on his computer rather than answer her, she pressed, “Tony?”

He still didn’t answer, shaking his head in frustration. Then suddenly, he was standing up and waving his hand to gesture for her to come closer. As she compliantly wandered around the desk to reach the computer at its end, he stepped aside. “Here. Take a look. Maybe it’ll like you more.”

That didn’t answer her question. However, the spy didn’t waste time asking anything more, and slipped into the desk chair he had previously been leaning against. Meanwhile, Tony took a few steps to the other side of the desk, back where she’d come. 

As he was pulling out his phone from his pocket, Natasha turned to the computer screen. She had seen the layout of the tracking implant’s data screen in passing a few times, and knew her way around the tech well enough to know what was what, despite having not nearly as much experience as Tony did with this particular device. So, she could instantly recognize that something was amiss with it. In fact, there was nothing to be read. The screen before her was merely a plain grid with rows upon rows of zeroes in the right-hand data column. There was nothing to read.

The map they had been waiting for during the past seven hours was _ gone. _

“Is this that glitch you mentioned?” Natasha asked, turning in the desk chair to half-face Tony while also reloading the computer screen. She reloaded the screen twice more, almost compulsively, when it continued to give her nothing but the same plain screen. 

“Not exactly,” was Tony’s distracted answer as he thumbed at his phone’s screen. “Damn it, it’s not working on here, either.”

“What does it look like there?”

“It keeps telling me ‘error,’ and that there’s no device under this serial code. I don’t know where the hell this is coming from. Just when it was about to finish loading, it randomly shut off. _ Without _ my knowledge or consent this time.” 

Natasha couldn’t accept that. She wasn’t willing to consider what it meant to have the tracker suddenly shut off on its own, to be erased completely from existence.

“Tony…” she said around a sudden knot in her throat. “What does it mean if it goes offline on its own?”

He shook his head again, grunting a little as he clearly struggled to get the device to cooperate with him. It wasn’t until he happened to glance up that he noticed the fear that must have been uncharacteristically palpable on the spy’s face. With one hand, he set his phone down and the other, he kept raised as if to urge her to sit down and calm. Natasha hadn’t even realized she’d risen up from the desk chair. 

“She’s OK,” he promised, even though he had no way of knowing for sure. “It doesn’t mean something’s happened to her. The tracker isn’t like her powers; it’s not powered by _ her. _ Even in a worst case scenario, it would stay on inside of her until disabled by its parent system.”

_ Worst case scenario. _ That had been Natasha’s first thought. That there was no one alive for the tracker to track anymore…

“Someone else probably hacked into the system,” Tony suggested, as if that was a comforting thought. “Like I said, the minute I put it back online and left it on, it was easy access for whoever originally created it.”

“And how long can they keep us locked out like this?”

“They can’t. I don’t know how else this could’ve happened, unless they just erased the entire algorithm, but it wouldn’t have happened this fast. Not even if _ I _ was doing it.”

Natasha felt like her brain couldn’t wrap around that. The closest thing they had to eyes on Wanda was gone. The tracker’s data—their _ map—_was erased. And despite Tony’s best efforts to understand how it was possible, she could tell by the extent of his frustration when he tried to keep working through his phone that he didn’t entirely know how. Which meant they were back to square one, with no resources, aside from a tentative lead with Luna’s presence at a shipping dock. They were left with even less to work with than the case with Wanda last year. They were left with _ nothing. _

The spy’s inner voice of hope was suddenly dead silent.

* * *

Wanda walked until her feet were sore, and the sun was at her back. It was only a slight condolence that the surrounding air was thankfully cool (though the occasional gust of wind hinted at even colder weather to come once the sun was down). She could feel herself growing faint again, though this time it didn’t have anything to do with her powers. If anything, she could feel them weakly warming her blood as they (presumably) tried to keep her upright and going until she found a more secure place to rest and recoup. She was exhausted, and dehydrated, and _ frustrated _ with what had to have been hours of senseless wandering. 

Then finally—_finally—_just when she thought she was going to collapse where she stood, an end came into sight. A road. A road with a sign.

Reinvigorated, Wanda pushed herself through those last few feet between her and the side of the road. She leaned against the road sign once she reached it, taking a moment to catch her breath after pushing herself in such a fatigued state. Up close, she could easily see the information on display. 

_ Barnaul, 6 k.m. _

It took her a few heartbeats to recognize the letters were slavic, again given her overwhelmed state. And also probably because she was more used to hearing the language spoken by James rather than printed. It was in Russian.

_ Damn. _ From the way her abductors had spoken, she’d had some hope that they were still in the States, at least. Finding her way home was going to be an entirely different beast to overcome while she was overseas. Especially with no money, no supplies—no _ anything _ at her disposal other than the clothes on her back. 

_ At least the distance means James and the others are safe, _ she hoped.

She leaned against the road sign anew, scanning both sides of the road as she did her best to lessen her own weight on her feet. No cars were visible, which she considered both a good and a bad thing. It indicated there was no one following her, but it also meant there was no chance of even trying to hitch a ride out from the open and into the city, where it would be easier to hide. She knew that was to be her priority: finding a place to lay low and recoup before planning her next course of action. Training with Steve and Natasha had taught her that, to take things one step at a time after a mission went south like this. It was easier to pace oneself that way. And Wanda now had firsthand experience with why it was so important to pace herself, to keep from getting overwhelmed and dropping right in front of her adversaries. 

Right now, however, she knew she would have to push herself past her physical limits. Just until she reached the nearest town and could get out of the open. She sighed wearily, trying to spontaneously muster the extra spurt of energy she was going to need for such a task. Distantly, she was aware that her hand was reaching for her neck, where she was still wearing James’s dog tags. She held them tightly in her fist, the only piece of her soldier that she had with her.

Well…not the _ only _ piece.

She refrained from touching her stomach. She was so paranoid about the possibility of having eyes on her that she didn’t even want to hint at the presence of anything there. Instead, she felt along her waist to reassure herself that her gun was still there and the hunting knife (still stained with her own blood) was in her pocket. Sure enough, both were still there.

_ You have it. You’re alright. We’re alright. _

Another breath, and then she was walking again. 

For the first several minutes, her hand stayed fixed around the dog tags at her neck, squeezing them whenever she felt particularly weak. Practically engraving the printed text that she had long ago memorized into her palm. 

_ Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. _

She recited it in her mind like a mantra, desperately using it to keep her thoughts off of other things. Like the concern that someone was watching her, and or tailing her. Or, ironically enough, off of James. How worried she was for him, how worried she was over what _ his _ worry for her must be doing to him. For whatever else her abductors were planning to do to lure him out of hiding. Something worse—as unfathomable as it was—than shooting Pietro right beside her… 

_ No. Don’t stress yourself. _

_ Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. _She recited that even when her hand left his dog tags to wrap her jacket more securely around herself. The air was gradually getting colder around her. And more humid.

_ Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. _

She exhaled shakily, feeling tired. She wanted to stop, but knew she couldn’t. 

_ Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. _

She tried to believe she was nearly there, nearly free to rest, even though she had no way of knowing for sure. The world around her was swaying, distorted by her dizzied, dehydrated brain. 

_ Barnes, James Buchanan. 32557038. _

_ Barnes, James Buchanan. Three-two-five-five…five…five… _

_ Barnes, James Buchanan… _

_ James Buchanan…three-two-five… _

_ James Buchanan… _

_ Three-two-five…five…five… _

_ No… _

She squeezed the dog tags again, senselessly pulling on them against her neck.

_ Barnes…Barnes… _

_ James. _

_ Fuck. _ She was so tired. _ So _ tired. And nauseous. 

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t keep going. She needed to stop. She needed to sit down, to rest. 

So, she did. 

She collapsed right where she was standing, barely getting her hand out in time to catch herself and keep from completely falling over. Her head swam as her body finally went still, sagging against some sort of stone behind her. She uselessly sat there for several heartbeats, panting for breath and hugging her knees to her chest. Then her stomach lurched with a fresh urge to be sick. However, there was nothing left in her stomach, so her body resorted to an ugly bout of coughing. 

Suddenly, all of her trust in Natasha and Steve’s training left her. In its place was sheer hopelessness, fueled by her physical misery. How was she supposed to do this? Drag herself to a town she didn’t know, full of people she didn’t know, let alone could trust, to go somewhere she didn’t yet know? When she was like _ this? _

She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t.

Once her coughing spell subsided, Wanda realized she could hear someone’s voice. She startled violently when she realized it was coming from a stranger, standing a mere two feet away from her. It was an older man with thin, white hair and a thick, equally white beard, donning even thicker clothing that was clearly more reasonable against the cold Russian air than Wanda’s own. He respectfully stepped back when he saw that she was startled by his presence, holding his hands up to show he meant no harm. Though that didn’t assuage Wanda’s anxiety any, given how well she knew Hydra could blend in anywhere as anyone. Even if this particular person wasn’t with Hydra, she couldn’t risk them recognizing her as the Scarlet Witch, and potentially drawing unwanted attention of all kinds to her. She even scrambled for the dog tags around her neck, tucking them under the collar of her shirt despite it being near impossible for the average person to read such small text from a distance. 

The man excused himself for surprising her, his voice gruff and heavy with his native accent. He spoke in Russian, asking if she was alright.

Wanda’s first inclination was to shake her head, to dismiss him. Belatedly, she found the words needed to convey that she was just taking a rest because she thought she was sick, hoping more than anything that her Sokovian was close enough to its sister language for him to understand. The stranger seemed to grasp what she meant, even backing up a little more to give her room, though being careful not to step into the road behind him. 

And then the witch realized. The road near them was full of passing cars. Further down the ways were sidewalks full of people. And buildings. Crowds and places to _ hide. _

Sitting up straighter, she asked the stranger before her, “_Eto Barnaul?_”

The older man looked confused by the question, as if unsure how she couldn’t know. Wordlessly, he nodded an affirmation.

Wanda could have melted right there from relief, leaning against the rough and flat surface behind her. She realized now that it was a wall to some sort of building. She very nearly laughed in hysteria as it truly sunk in that she had made it to the city, after all. 

Fortunately, she managed to keep it together enough to convince the stranger before her to leave her be, once again stammering in a half-Sokovian, half-Russian dialect that she was fine. He shuffled away with only one last uncertain glance at her, heading back the way she had just come, towards one of the farm houses she had passed. 

As he went, Wanda pushed herself back to her feet, relying on the wall behind her for leverage. Her legs shook a little, clearly unsatisfied with such a brief resting period. She stumbled a few steps forward at first, having to consciously will her feet to move. Then when her body fell back into the rhythm of walking, she was able to shift her focus back onto figuring out the next phase of her escape. 

Technically, she still had to get through finding a more secure location to properly recoup. But where? She didn’t know anyone here. She barely even knew where in Russia she was. The closest thing she’d had to experience in the area were secondhand memories from the few times she had seen inside Natasha’s mind. Once when she was digging into the spy’s memories to find something for Ultron to exploit, and then another time by accident when they had both gotten sick from Hydra’s drug, and her powers bled into the other woman’s mind. 

The witch was still trying to figure out how she could use those secondhand memories to her advantage when suddenly, she noticed something promising. A bus station. Despite still being uncertain where exactly she intended to go, she gravitated towards the station, comforted solely by the idea of getting as far from where her abductors had last seen her as she could manage. 

_ Come on, Maximoff, _ she thought. _ Play it smart. What would Natasha say? _

_ Eyes on your surroundings. Make sure you blend in. _

Wanda kept her eyes on the people around her as she made her way towards the bus station. There weren’t too many people out, and no one among them seemed to spare her as much as a second glance. However, that only made her feel just as exposed as she had been when she was wandering alone through farmland. She wanted a group of people to cover her, to blend in with as travelling companions. 

Once she actually reached the station, she soon found such a group. They were young, around her age, and from the way they were struggling to find their way around the station, they were definitely foreigners, as well. Perhaps even tourists travelling to the nearby mountains, judging from the nearly overstuffed bags on their backs. Including one with water bottles in pockets on either side of their backpack.

If she hadn’t been so dehydrated, her mouth probably would have watered right then and there.

_ Smart, Maximoff. Play it smart. _

She gravitated towards the group of travelers as inconspicuously as possible, feigning looking around for someone else she was expecting to meet her. Then she hovered in place once she was scarcely a foot away from the tourists, hoping that it was close enough to seem like she was with them to any others passing by. Her gaze flitted between said passersby and her group of fellow travelers, particularly the one with their water visible. 

Wanda wrapped her arms around herself as if to make herself feel warmer (which wasn’t at all hard to fake), when in actuality, she was hiding her hands. Anxiety crept through her blood as she bid to her scarlet, desperately hoping it was safe to use despite her presently fatigued _ and _ pregnant condition if it was for just a small, simple task. That is, eating away at the stitching that bound the backpack pocket closest to her. She kept her gaze trained on the pocket from the corner of her eye, still alternating between what was next to her and what was around her, keeping alert for anyone that could notice the wisps of scarlet that shakily slithered into being, despite them being barely bigger than their creator’s little finger, and being almost transparently thin. She felt a burning jolt where she had cut her tracking implant out, but otherwise, she hardly felt the psionic energy leave her. She did feel the phantom sensation of the backpack’s side against her fingertips, its pocket resisting at first against such a frail sample of her scarlet, but eventually, it began to give way.

_ Got it! _

With speed her brother would be proud of, the witch ducked down to catch the water bottle just as it fell, then swiftly tucked it into her jacket and hurried away before anyone could so much as notice the busted pocket. Once she had made it all the way to the other end of the station without anyone saying anything, she thought it safe to unearth her find and finally get some water into her system.

Downing that water was like having new life breathed into her. Of course, she couldn’t indulge in it all at once. She restrained herself to just three gulps, bearing in mind that she didn’t know when she would have a chance to get any more. 

With her senses finally feeling clearer, the witch lowered her water to her side and surveyed her surroundings anew. She was now further away from the safety of the crowd of other travelers, but she was closer to the information board that displayed which buses were designated to go to what city. At the moment, it seemed like those meant for cities that were furthest away had already left, leaving her to choose from those in the general vicinity of where her abductors had taken her. Granted, if she hid well enough, the distance wouldn’t matter, but still. She would feel better leaving the city, and being further away from whatever base, or laboratory, or what have you that they had originally tried to take her to. 

The next bus was leaving in just a few minutes. The crowd waiting for it consisted of only a handful of souls, which was enough to provide a cover. And such a small group of people was helpful when she stretched her telepathy out to them, trying to get more information on what would await her in the city where their bus was headed. She found out they were tourists as well, their thoughts centered around anticipation to see various cathedrals and fine arts buildings. Things like libraries, and operas, and ballet theatres. 

_ Ballet… _

A ballet academy. One that reminded her of a hazy memory that did not truly belong to her. Of mirrors, and windows, and brutal trainers watching their subjects’ every move. A strict regime, and grime and bruises and lies. A place that didn’t technically exist anymore.

_ “You are unbreakable. You will not fail.” _

She knew where she could go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not expect this chapter to be this long; my apologies, friends! Don’t think any content warnings are in order, aside from the typical language and comic-book typical action/violence. As always, I hope you enjoy!

The flight home from London had been a blur. So had the hour after it. And then two hours. And now, eight hours. _Eight_ hours. Bucky could hardly focus. He could barely function, could barely process that this had really happened. And worst of all, that he was _useless _to do anything. Steve had all but dragged him to his and Wanda’s suite on the upper floors of Stark Tower, only to leave him there, locked in his room like a petulant child by Stark’s AI, while Steve left to check in with Tony and Natasha. Bucky knew that if he wanted to, he could always force the door down. However, he also knew that if he even tried such a thing, Jarvis would promptly lock down the next several doors he encountered. And probably notify Steve of the escape attempt, too.

So, Bucky made himself stay in one seat at the breakfast table while he waited for…_something._ He wasn’t sure exactly what, but whatever the matter, waiting was all he could do. It was an ineffectiveness he wasn’t at all used to. It wasn’t in any of the programming instilled into him as the Winter Soldier. It wasn’t in his _own _nature to just sit around, wearing a groove into the side of the table with his metal thumb, while his mind was so fixed on the notion of there being a mission to complete, an objective to fulfill. A _need_ that had to be met.

_Find Wanda. Bring her home._

The lock to the suite’s door clicked. He immediately tensed at the sound, half-ready to bolt the moment he saw it open. Natasha’s words flooding back to him stopped him, though, and with them, the reminder that even if he did manage to leave the Tower, _someone_ would stop him along the way. Because no matter what, he _was_ still the Winter Soldier (and he hated himself for it).

Steve was there, and he closed the door behind him without turning to face it. His gaze was trained on the floor in front of him, his expression just as grave as it had been when he left some minutes ago. Although this time, his brow was pinched with some sort of underlying confusion. However, by the time he neared Bucky, that had smoothed out into a stony acquiescence to whatever had been distracting him.

“You knew about Wanda.”

Bucky wanted to ask what he was referring to. But he knew his friend too well to waste his breath on it. He knew amidst everything that had happened, there was only one thing about Wanda that could have shocked Steve like this. Only one thing between her and Bucky that no one else knew (until now, apparently). One thing that Bucky had absolutely refused to even think about since leaving London, because it would only be cause for an additional, _maddening_ layer of anxiety surrounding Wanda’s disappearance.

Steve huffed a breath, the beginnings of several questions falling from his lips, though none actually became fully-fledged, comprehensible thoughts. He dropped into the chair beside Bucky’s, finally reaching a question worth completing. “Did you…do you know how far she’s…you know?”

Bucky was suddenly hyper-aware of his own heart beating in his chest. He didn’t face his friend, but rather, kept staring at the door. He _couldn’t_ face him. Not for this.

“How did you even…?” Steve continued after a tense beat of silence. “And during the mission we had…”

He uttered a strange sound, something between frustration and sympathy. “You could have talked to me, Buck. You can talk to me about anything. I wish you knew that.”

There was another uncomfortable moment of silence. Presumably, it was an opening for Bucky to acknowledge the offered sentiment, or maybe even utilize it, to finally unload what had been going through his mind when he was so distracted during their mission together. Back when he was first coming to terms with what it could mean for Wanda to be pregnant.

But he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t…

“Granted,” Steve went on, “I don’t know what I could’ve said to…I don’t know. But the point is, you didn’t have to go through whatever it was alone. You still don’t. You’re not alone anymore.”

Now Bucky reacted. He couldn’t stop the involuntary jerk his body gave, as if directly refusing that statement. It wasn’t necessarily anything against Steve. He knew his friend was only ever genuine about his support. But in that moment, when he was still low and reeling from the loss of the first person to actually convince him that he didn’t have to live as the broken, lonesome Winter Soldier anymore, he couldn’t help but feel like he _was_ alone again. Or at the very least, like he didn’t deserve the support. Not when he didn’t truly belong among Steve’s team, having only earned his current sanctuary among them because they believed Wanda needed him there.

Wanda had needed him, and he failed her.

“Bucky,” Steve said in an imploring tone, “this doesn’t just affect the two of you. It’s going to be an adjustment for all of us. And…”

He trailed off, pausing for a brief moment. Then when he spoke again, his voice had become more determined. “We are going to get her back. We’re going to find her. But first, we have to know how this affected her. Physically, I mean. Did you notice if it changed her powers, at all? If it maybe compromised them?”

Those questions only confirmed that Bucky could not have this conversation. Not right now, when he was still processing the mere idea that Wanda had been in danger while he was gone. That she could _still _be in danger. Adding in the notion that her default means of self-defense may be failing her—and for all they knew, hindering the other ways to protect herself she had learned from the team—was just inviting him to mentally shut down again, like when they had left London.

“Bucky, please,” Steve pressed gently, clearly thinking Bucky was still in that numbed, unfocused state. “I need you to think. Did you notice anything off? Before we left, before…before things changed between you two?”

Bucky clenched his jaw, reluctantly accepting the fact that he needed to answer his friend. Steve wouldn’t let this go, otherwise. “I don’t know,” he said flatly.

“We just found out her powers have been interfering with the tracking implant. I’m going to need a little more than just ‘I don’t know.’ If there’s a risk that her powers are also acting up against her in other ways, because she wasn’t meant to get—”

_No!_ Bucky abruptly rushed to his feet. Where he intended to go, he didn’t know, but he only managed a few steps towards the front door before Steve was on him, stopping him with a grip on his jacket sleeve.

“Buck—”

“No,” Bucky protested aloud this time, his voice weak and pathetic. “I can’t—”

“Can’t what?” Steve demanded, palpably struggling to hold onto his patience. It was clear he was still willing to see reason, to recognize how it was hard for Bucky to discuss this right now. But it was also clear to see that he was just as anxious, frantic to know whatever he could about his missing teammate if it meant they would have another clue as to how to find her. “What? What is it, Bucky? You talked to her right before we left. Whatever you said to each other, or however she looked to you—or Hell, even before then—you’re sure you didn’t notice something different when you were together, and just didn’t know what it was? If it helps us locate her, then why can’t—”

“Because I _left_ her!” Bucky snapped, wrenching his flesh arm from Steve’s grip. “I left, and now I…”

He didn’t finish the thought out loud, but could feel himself choking on the words just the same. _I have to pay for it._

Natasha had been dead right. He blamed himself for not being there. He couldn’t see any other way. If he hadn’t left the Tower—if he hadn’t even told Wanda that Steve had offered him the mission, like he had originally wanted to do—then she wouldn’t have left, either. There would have been no chance for this to happen. Whoever had done this wouldn’t have had an opportunity to act. Pietro wouldn’t have been shot, and Wanda would still _be here._

This was on him.

Steve backed off a little, giving his friend some space. “That’s not why this happened, Buck,” he insisted. “It wasn’t your fault. If anything, it was _my_ idea to have you leave the Tower. I thought you were ready to start phasing back into the field—and if it meant getting to see Peggy for some closure with her while we were at it, then I—”

“No,” Bucky cut in abruptly. “No, you don’t get it. That night we were over there, there was a moment where I was alone and I…I thought about just…” 

Now he was the one with his gaze trained on the floor, feeling his shame like a physical weight on his shoulders. Shame for that night in London, when he’d contemplated leaving Steve. When he’d nearly convinced himself to leave the team, and the life he had started building among them altogether.

To think if he _had_ done it…if he had left the team thinking he was doing what was best for Wanda, only for _this_ to happen without him knowing…that was horrifying to him. He hated himself for even thinking of leaving at the moment—for being so damn weak, even for just a single moment…

He gave a bitter huff. “Serves me right for thinking I could do it. That I could just leave. Like I could go anywhere without—”

“No, that’s not what this is,” Steve said firmly. “That’s not how this works. She’s gone because someone went after her. For all we know, they weren’t even trying to get to one of us in particular. What happened wasn’t because of…because some higher power wanted to punish you, or whatever you're gettin’ at. Why would it even matter? Because you got scared for a moment? Because you _thought_ about stepping away, without actually acting on it?”

“You don’t know—”

“What? What don’t I know?” Steve didn’t give him a chance to answer before he moved onto something else, this time with his words sounding more like a challenge than a question. “Why did you want to leave?”

Bucky was so flummoxed by his friend’s hard tone and his own raw distress that the truth unabashedly escaped him. “Because I thought it would be better for her. I thought…I guess I thought if I…if I just wasn’t around her anymore, then I couldn’t hurt her again. Like nothing I did—or that I have hiding in my past—could catch up with her. Or with…with either of them.”

Steve went silent for a moment. Bucky waited for his response tensely, his heart thudding as he felt his own words hanging in the air, making his deepest fears bare. He pulled in a trembling breath, eyeing the walls as they seemed to close in around him.

“It’s not bad to want those things, Buck,” Steve said eventually, his voice returning to its more usual, patient tone. “And it certainly doesn’t mean you deserve to go through this. None of us do, for that matter. None of us know why this started. But we’re going to figure it out, because we _are _going to find her.”

Bucky desperately wanted to believe that. With Steve’s unyielding determination and stubbornness, he could almost believe it. _Almost._ If he hadn’t been subjected to as much horrors as he had been thus far, so exposed to the harsh realities of war, and Hydra, and the world of assassins and spies, perhaps he would have believed that resolving this was as simple as merely saying they would. As if just like that, his sweetheart would be back home with him, laying on top of him and pressing delicate kisses to the seam of his metal arm like she did every night.

But he knew the way the world really was.

“She’s going to be scared.” For some reason, that was the hardest part to accept. Horrible images haunted his mind, of Wanda surrounded by a web of her own scarlet, wrathful and internally suffering after being tortured. Wanda collapsing in her brother’s arms, veins glowing as blood spilled from a wound in her chest. Wanda trying to push him away, her face pale with illness and her voice trembling because she was scared. Scared for him, but also scared for herself, because she wasn’t used to feeling so out of touch with her scarlet.

“Anytime something changes how she interacts with her powers, it scares her. I don’t know if they were affected by any of this, but if they were, then…then she must be scared by it.”

The thought was like poison in his heart. That sense of uselessness he’d been feeling all day to remedy whatever Wanda was going through added to the already present weight on his shoulders, crushing and unbearable. Especially knowing that it was his fault. Even if the ambush hadn’t been because of him, her powers being compromised was. If she couldn’t use them, it was because of what he’d done to her—because of the serum she had been exposed to because of him.

“If she gets hurt because she can’t use her powers…”

Steve stopped him. “We can’t think like that. Right now, all it’s going to do is give us heartache.”

There was another beat of quiet, this time as Bucky forced himself to accept Steve was right. At the same time, Steve ventured closer, placing a hand on the other soldier’s shoulder and giving him a small shake. “I haven’t ever seen fear stop her before. It certainly didn’t stop her from finding you.”

Bucky looked up at that.

“Some confused and closed-off super-soldier she didn’t even know? That couldn’t have been easy. But look how it turned out.”

It was hard to be comforted by that, given their current situation. But Bucky knew what his friend was getting at.

“Now,” Steve went on, this time sounding more reminiscent of his steadfast, authoritative field persona, Captain America, “if that’s all there is to know about what we’re working with here, then what we’re going to do next is put our heads together and figure out how we’re going to find our teammate without the help of her tracker. Are you coming with?”

Bucky didn’t have to contemplate that. “Of course I am.”

“Good. So, then let’s go find our girl.”

With a final pat to Bucky’s shoulder, Steve went to the door. At first, it seemed like he was going to leave regardless of whether Bucky followed. However, once in the entry hall that separated the suite from the elevator, he stopped and turned to see if Bucky was coming. After taking a deep, measured breath and rubbing the back of his flesh wrist against his eyes, Bucky was. He still felt weighted down by his guilt over letting all of this happen, but admittedly, speaking on it aloud had made it easier to put himself into action. In the elevator, he internally recomposed himself even more, gathering what he needed from his tenacious training as the Winter Soldier in order to be of the utmost help he could be.

By the time he and Steve were outside of Stark’s workshop, all traces of his vulnerability and heartache were gone. He was resolute again, focused solely on the objectivity of the mission before them.

_Find Wanda. Bring her home._

They were going to find her. They _were._

“How’re we looking?” Steve asked the moment he crossed through the threshold into the room.

Tony and Natasha were there, both at the desk on the other side of the room. Tony was sitting behind the main computer, with several projection screens hovering around him, whilst Natasha was on the opposite end of the desk, half-leaning and half-sitting on its edge as she tapped vigorously at a burner phone in her hand. Neither of them looked up, let alone acknowledged Bucky hovering close behind their Captain.

“Tracker’s a bust,” Natasha answered. “We’re turning to more old-fashioned methods.”

“Old-fashioned, how?” Steve pressed.

“Well, I’m getting our eyes on every traffic and security cam within the vicinity of where our last lead was,” Tony explained, his attention rapidly switching from screen to screen. “Jarvis is going to notify us the second there’s a face-match somewhere to Wanda. She,” he pointed in Natasha’s direction, “is spreading the word of said leads to Hill and Fury. Though, apparently, they’re so far underground at the moment, that communication with them is slightly delayed.”

“So, what can _we_ do while we’re all waiting for a hit from either of those platforms?” Steve questioned, gesturing to himself and Bucky.

“Well, it’s just a rough idea, but desperate times and all that.” Tony finally paused whatever he was working on to spare the two super-soldiers a glance. While he did, he pulled a phone from his pocket and tossed it to them, which Steve easily caught. “Get Stark Industries on the line. Tell them I want to run a personal trial run on the R&D Department’s most recent project. If they want specifics, ask about the Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing project.”

Natasha also paused from her work, looking up briefly to give the inventor a skeptical look. “BARF?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, we’re still working on the acronym,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “The lead creator is a little…offbeat. Sometimes, I even get the impression he thinks we’re there to build weapons still. But he’s got good ideas with his tech. If we can get a few witnesses to the ambush in here, it might be usable to give us more clues as to what exactly happened at the time of the ambush.”

“If it’s from Stark Industries,” Steve put in, “how long would it take to ship it all over here?”

“If we classify it under ‘urgent,’ then it can probably be here for us to use within—”

All of a sudden, Tony stopped himself, distracted by something that blinked on the physical computer in front of him. Even from across the room, Bucky could see the way the other man’s face scrunched into confusion.

Evidently, Steve saw it too. “What is it?”

“Jarvis is telling me that we’ve got an email incoming from an unknown source.” Tony tapped once at the keyboard beneath the screen. Then he read whatever he had received, and his expression eased with slight relief. Shooting a look at Natasha, he announced, “It’s our pal, Benny.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Who?”

“The dock worker that found Luna,” Natasha told him.

“Apparently,” Tony added, still watching something on the desktop before him, “he got ahold of some security footage from his workplace, and he spotted someone he and his buddies don’t recognize transporting cargo. It looks to me like…actually, this is a pretty good shot.”

“Blow it up?” Natasha implored.

Tony made a waving motion with his hand. The desktop screen followed the action, gliding through the other, holographic screens hovering along the desk until it was projected in the center image. The feed was momentarily stilled, holding on a blurry black-and-white image of a tall figure pushing a cart of large cargo boxes out of a warehouse. The image on the figure’s face zoomed in closer, showing slightly more detail, such as the sharp outline of the person’s face, the faint discoloration of a scar around their right eye, and the sheen of their dark, slicked-back hair.

Bucky felt his breath leave him, and his jaw clenched. Judging from the way Steve’s expression darkened beside him, he must have recognized the man in the image too.

Tony noticed the reaction, as well. “Do we know him?”

“Yeah,” Steve scoffed bitterly. “You could say we used to know him.”

“Jack Rollins,” Natasha elaborated. “He was a member of Strike Team Delta with us.”

“As in the same Strike team where everyone but you two defected to Hydra during their obnoxious uprising two years ago?” Tony asked rhetorically. “That’s comforting.”

It really wasn’t. And that wasn’t how Bucky knew him. Rollins had been a frequent face to him in the later years he’d spent as the Winter Soldier. He had mostly been a guard for the Soldier’s handlers, in case Bucky ever tried to turn on them. Everything else about the agent had blurred together with the other guards in Bucky’s memory, but he did remember the guy was the type to rely more on his brawn rather than brains. Certainly not the kind that would have too many aspirations outside of whatever his superiors ordered of him.

Regardless, his presence here and now confirmed one of Bucky’s fears. Hydra was a part of this.

“What else do we have on him?” Tony continued.

“He’s a grade-A prick,” Steve said, his voice teeming with venom unlike anything Bucky could remember hearing from his friend ever before.

“A trigger-happy prick,” Natasha added, though despite her words, maintained her usual unruffled visage. “He’s the one who would’ve shot Steve point-blank in broad daylight—and right in front of the media, too—had his CO not given the command to stand down during the episode in DC.”

“So, he can at least follow a command,” Tony pointed out, stepping closer to the group so that he could see the security feed up close. “Do we know if the CO is still around? Maybe still pulling the strings on him?”

“The whole team scattered when Hydra was exposed,” Natasha ruefully reported. “Brock Rumlow—the CO—was even determined dead or missing after he disappeared from the medical center where he was being treated for injuries sustained during the Helicarrier fight.”

“_Or?_” Tony muttered curiously.

“I know him, too,” Bucky suddenly spoke up.

Both Steve and Natasha turned to him. “Who? Rollins, or Rumlow?” the spy inquired.

“Both. They each had frequent shifts as guards for the Winter Soldier’s handlers.” Bucky could feel the plates in his metal arm attempting to shift in discomfort as he recalled Rumlow, as well. He had mostly served as a guard, like Rollins, though he’d had more of a knack for strategic planning, even without a superior officer’s instruction. _And _he’d had a strong inclination for torture, even when it was deemed unnecessary. Probably a fan of sadism, in general.

God, if _he_ had Wanda… 

Steve sighed heavily. “So, they didn’t just defect. They were with Hydra all along.”

“OK…OK, then.” Tony crossed his arms over his chest and nodded at the ceiling. “Jarvis, make a slight modification to our facial recognition algorithm. Target matches to this guy, instead of Maximoff. Be sure to maintain top priority protocols, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis replied with a dutiful chime.

“Do we know where he was taking those shipping containers?” Natasha asked, pointing to the cart of boxes Rollins was pushing in the security feed.

“Benny says he sent us all the shots he could find of this guy.” Tony paused briefly to scroll through what must have been the email where the security cam images had come from. “There’s only, like, three of ‘em, and that’s the only one where he’s got the cart.”

Natasha hummed in thought, clearly unaware she was toying with the cheap phone still in her hand as she did. “These are the same guys Fury’s been chasing since SHIELD fell,” she mused aloud. “If he knows they were involved in this ambush, then there’s a possibility they already have their own tabs on—”

“Sir,” Jarvis interrupted, sounding surprisingly urgent for a machine. “There was a recent sighting of an individual with an 84.33% match to Jack Rollins at a Higgins gas station and convenience store, in central Richmond, Virginia.”

Tony’s posture straightened at that. “How recent?”

It took only a brief second for Jarvis to calculate. “Approximately 43.6 minutes ago, sir.”

“See if we can piece together the license plate on his vehicle and track that,” Tony directed.

“Richmond. Is there anything around there that’s relevant to Hydra?” Steve wondered.

“There’s an abandoned base near there,” Bucky said before he had truly finished the thought. His shoddy memory failed him on further details. “It’s…somewhere in South Carolina. Sumter, I think. If they’re trying to stay undetected by Fury’s shadow teams, they may be seeking it out—”

“To reuse, like Strucker’s son did to the one upstate, here,” Natasha finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“Alright, J,” Tony told the ceiling. “Narrow down our search to the main highways between South Carolina and Virginia.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis responded.

“If his destination is two states away from that last sighting, then there’s a chance he’s still on the road,” Steve suggested. “We can still intercept him.”

The plates in Bucky’s metal arm stirred again, as if reminding him not to get his hopes up too soon.

Natasha furthered that temperance. “We can catch up to him if we take a jet, yes. But if we take off right now—”

“We’re gonna have to work around the media circus out there,” Tony cut in. “They’ve still got at least two choppers circling us, trying to get first footage on that exact thing. Even in a best case scenario, that’s gonna slow us down.”

A beat of silence followed that. During so, Bucky’s eyes remained on Natasha. He could see the way her eyes moved, reflecting a mind that was working a mile a minute to find a way around the obstacle at hand.

At last, the spy made a tentative proposal. “Maybe if we gave the media a diversion, the rest could take off without any hindrance.”

“What kind of diversion?” Steve questioned.

Natasha scoffed. “Oh, I think we all know Iron Man is guaranteed to find some way to draw attention to himself.”

“That’s fair,” Tony mumbled earnestly.

“So, that leaves the three of us to go after Rollins,” Steve decided.

“Three?” Tony echoed, his eyebrows raised in skepticism. “You don’t think one of you is a little too emotionally compromised on the matter to be field-approved?”

Bucky’s metal fingers twitched. Though, he remained quiet. He knew the inventor’s apprehension wasn’t rooted in his already existing dislike for him (or at least, not _just_ that). Bucky had already nearly compromised a mission before by acting rashly in the field, having lashed out at the last Hydra party that had tried to hold Wanda hostage. That time, they had fortunately known where Wanda was being kept, so it was only a brief inconvenience when Bucky blew the initial plan. Now, they were in the dark over what Hydra had done with his sweetheart, which meant Bucky letting his emotions get the better of him for even a moment could be potentially costly.

But he knew he couldn’t just stay behind and wait, either. He would surely go insane from his impatience and worry.

Steve spoke for him, as rational as ever. “Maybe. But if the lead near Sumter falls through, we could use the knowledge of Hydra’s other bases to immediately direct us towards other bases in the area. Even the supposedly retired ones that won’t fall on a computer’s radar anymore.”

“Yeah…I guess,” Tony relented half-heartedly. Then he turned to Natasha, as did Steve. “Romanoff?”

Natasha hesitated. Bucky noticed her index finger tapping restlessly against her burner phone in a rare display of agitation. Like the two other men there, Bucky trusted the spy’s ability to make the most objective decision, given that she shared Tony’s distrust of Bucky’s ability to be level-headed with a mission of this nature, but also wanted to share Steve’s faith in him because Steve was her partner, and she respected his judgement.

That being said, it didn’t mean Bucky wasn’t willing to argue his way onto that jet if he needed to. So far, Rollins was the strongest link to whoever had taken Wanda, and Bucky wanted a hand at bringing him in, at getting answers out of him.

After a heartbeat more of contemplation, Natasha sighed. “Desperate times, and all that,” she said with a half-hearted smirk in Tony’s direction. More seriously, she reminded, “Sam’s underground, and Pietro’s benched. This is an all-hands case and Barnes does have intel we could use on the fly.”

Looking pointedly at Bucky, she added, “The thing is, you can’t be caught working with us. So, can you still apply ghost-like conditions to your fieldwork?”

Bucky gave a curt nod, somehow managing to cap his overwhelming relief. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Then, in that case, suit up, boys.”

* * *

The team followed the fastest-moving interstate highway to search for Rollins. At first, it had been a gamble, considering it wasn’t likely a Hydra agent on the run would take such a popular route after abducting a high-profile hostage. But it was also the most reasonable if he was prioritizing speed and time. Not long into their flight, Tony confirmed they were on the right track. Apparently, he had found a traffic cam that caught the car on an entry ramp to that very highway.

“We’re back to home base on this end,” he said after relaying the news. “Did a couple of aimless laps around the city, and not to brag, but I think it annoyed the paparazzi enough to leave us alone for the foreseeable future.”

“Never doubted your skills for a second, Stark,” Natasha called to the intercom system throughout the quinjet. Her jesting tone was clearly forced, for her physical demeanor was pulled taut. Bucky was able to notice it even as she stood on the other side of the jet from him while he flew the aircraft. They were too high above the highway to make out the individual SUV they were looking for, so his attention was also partially on the GPS map that Tony (technically, Jarvis) had forwarded them.

“How’re things going over there, field team?” Tony asked.

Steve answered him this time, watching the GPS screen from over Bucky’s shoulder as he stood just behind the pilot chair. “We’ve got a digital eye on the target’s projected path, thanks to that map you sent. But physically-speaking, we’re still flying blind until we can find a window to land without giving ourselves away.”

“I can help you find one,” Tony promised. “Just give me a second to pull up your location here.” There was a pause as Tony worked with his computer back home, most likely connecting himself to their jet’s system. “It looks like there’s an RV park coming up in the next eleven miles. Shouldn’t be too busy given the cold weather. Looks like there’s some good cover on the outskirts of the property. You’ll need to start veering right to make it on time.”

“We’ve got to drop Natasha first,” Steve replied.

“Better get to it, then.”

Steve turned to Natasha behind them. “You ready?”

“Always,” she returned confidently, striding over to the large hatch in the center of the quinjet. “On your count, Cap.”

The Captain placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Start closing in, Buck.”

Bucky obediently throttled down the jet, steadily descending towards the highway beneath them. He had flown in SHIELD-designed quinjets before, but he had rarely been the one flying before, so it was hard to trust the reflective panels along its outer surface were truly concealing the craft. Evidently, they must have been, for the traffic below continued travelling along, as though the drivers were wholly ignorant of the jet overhead.

“Now we’ve got eyes on him,” Steve said lowly. A second later, Bucky saw what his friend had. A polished, ink-black SUV speeding down the road, easy to spot due to being the only one of its size there.

Bucky’s heart began to hammer in his chest. Was Wanda in there?

“Better get moving,” Tony urged over the intercom. “There’s an exit coming up in a few miles. Make sure you cut him off before he gets to it.”

“Understood,” Steve replied. Turning back to Natasha, he added, “Comin’ up on your window. Be careful, OK?”

“No worries, Rogers,” she assured. “It’s not my first time pulling this particular trick out of my hat.”

“Minimal damage to the car,” the Captain reminded. “We don’t know what he’s got with him. Or if Wanda’s in there.”

“I know.” Natasha’s words were nearly drowned out by the loud whirring of machinery as she opened the hatch in front of her.

Steve stepped further into the cockpit of the jet, bringing his hand up to hover over a button near the ceiling. Once Bucky had positioned them at a safe height over the highway, with no cars below or behind them, he began to count down. “Dropping in three…two…one.”

At the final number, he flattened his palm against the button. More machinery whirred loudly as the right side of the hatch’s bottom opened, allowing the motorcycle inside to drop onto the road below. Within seconds, Natasha’s bright red hair could be seen whipping in the wind as she drove beneath the quinjet, rapidly zipping ahead of them.

“Cap,” Tony said, his voice tight with urgency, “it’s almost your turn. Got your window coming up quick on your right.”

“Buck—”

“I got it.” Bucky saw the wide expanse of greenery the inventor was trying to lead them to, and he carefully swerved the jet in that direction. Despite his efforts to make their descent as smooth as possible, the suddenness of it still caused Steve to grip the back of his chair for support. Within the next few heartbeats, Bucky was able to land in its intended spot, even though the jet barely fit among the throng of trees that served as their additional cover.

Steve was quick to regain his bearings. “Nice work, bud,” he said in earnest, patting Bucky’s chair. He then stepped away, returning a moment later with a small device in hand that Bucky instinctively took when it was handed to him. It was an earpiece intercom.

“That’s to let you know when we’re on our way back,” Steve explained. “We’ll need wheels up again as soon as possible.”

He didn’t wait for Bucky to respond before he was making his way to the back of the jet, working the left hand side of the central hatch open to reveal his own bike. Then he was opening the jet’s ramp, manually pulling the motorcycle with him to the exit.

Bucky watched him go, having already been given orders from Natasha to stay behind while she and Steve went after Rollins. The mere idea of sitting back and doing nothing still wasn’t an easy task for him. Especially not now, with his closer proximity to something—_someone,_ rather—who might actually know where Wanda had gone. He could feel the need to act on that lead like a vicious, aggravating itch.

But he also knew there was sound reasoning behind such orders. He couldn’t afford to let himself be seen with the team. And he couldn’t risk letting himself get caught up in his emotions, potentially losing his resolve and attacking Rollins before the Hydra agent could answer their questions.

“This won’t take long,” Steve said confidently, having mounted his bike. The moment the ramp’s end touched the earth, he took off speeding towards the highway.

Bucky stood up and retraced his friend’s steps as far as the jet’s end, readied to close the ramp behind him. However, he found himself pausing just to see if Steve had taken off in time to intercept the car from the front.

Steve did manage to cut in front of the SUV. However, the moment he was seen darting into the center of the road, the car’s brakes screeched to a full stop several feet away from him. For a long moment, the car merely sat there, inciting those travelling behind to swerve around it, some nearly hitting Steve in the process. Steve was able to swerve his own vehicle out of the way in time, nearly falling off the bike as he simultaneously reached for the shield on his back. He pulled the signature disk in front of him, ducking his head behind it. Not a second later, the sound of glass shattering and a gun firing coarsed through the air, bullets violently pinging off the surface of the shield.

The urge to rush forward and do something pulled at Bucky again. _No. Follow your orders, _soldat.

Begrudgingly, he turned away to shut the jet ramp, only to stop again when he could hear another screech from the SUV’s tires. In his peripheral, he could also see the car start to whirl around in a tight arc. The turn was so sharp, there was a terrifying second in which the vehicle lurched onto its right hand tires. Bucky thought he could see a flash of scarlet underneath the car, righting it back onto all fours. Then it was speeding out of his line of sight, travelling against oncoming traffic.

Steve’s voice crackled in his ear. “Nat, you’ve got him incoming.”

“I see him.”

Tony’s voice cut through, as well. “Either of you think you can take out the tires?”

The plates in Bucky’s metal arm twitched from dyspathy for that idea. Fortunately, Steve was on the same page as him. “Negative. He’s going seventy and pushing it. We can’t risk damaging the car.”

“I’m gonna see if I can get on the car,” Natasha stated. “Hang on.”

Bucky stopped listening, forcing himself to finally close the jet ramp, instead. Steve and Natasha were both well-trained Avengers. He had to trust that _two_ Avengers could handle _one_ Hydra agent on their own.

“Shit!”

“Nat—”

“What’s goin’ on, field team?”

There was a beat of silence before Steve ground out an answer. “He’s about to push Nat off the road.”

“I’ll be fine—just don’t lose him!”

_Stand down, _soldat._ They have it._

There was a faint squeal of tires and car horns blaring through the intercom. The echo of those sounds in reality was muffled, indicating that the pair had at least managed to get further away from where they had landed.

More horns blared. Some people screamed, meaning either Steve or Nat had veered close enough to them for it to be heard through their earpieces.

He thought of Wanda, wondering if one of those terrified persons was her. If her powers were failing her while she watched her friends struggle to reach her, she would be. If she saw _he _wasn’t there, she would be.

_They have it. Don’t overreact._

“Nat, where are you?”

“I’m going after him. He’s crossing the median—I’m gonna see if I can cut him off before he reaches the exit.”

_If anything happens, Wanda will figure it out. She’s survived worse. She’s even survived Hydra before, when she got her powers._

_But if those powers are compromised—or if they’ve _hurt _her…_

If Hydra didn’t know Wanda was pregnant, then hurting her would be the only way they knew could subdue her. Hell, even if they did know, depending on what their ultimate plans were, it wouldn’t stop them. That was how barbarous they could be, how much they valued their group’s objectives above even human lives.

_If you hadn’t left her in the first place—when she was already anxious and needed you, like she needs you now—_

_Stand down, _soldat. _This has happened to her before. The Avengers stopped her from getting taken before._

_But Hydra tortured her, first. And it nearly pushed her to self-destruction._

“If you need reinforcements, I can be back in the suit in—”

“There’s no time! He’s already on the exit—”

“I’ve almost got him! Steve, head for the south ramp, and I’ll see if I can get him to turn around and head over to you.”

Gunshots fired in his earpiece, too far away to be heard in reality. They had gotten farther away, but they didn’t have Wanda.

He couldn’t bear this. He couldn’t stand here, helpless—so _helpless—_

_Wanda._

_“You will never be free. You can’t keep her from us.”_

Screw it. He wasn’t perfect. And come to think of it, he wasn’t truly a part of the Avengers. So, they couldn’t officially give him orders.

Bucky hadn’t moved from his place by the jet ramp; thus, it took only one slam against the control button to have the ramp lowering itself again. While it did, he gathered some supplies from the compartments running along the jet’s upper wall. Then he removed the earpiece in his ear, tossing it aside on the off-chance an onlooker would notice it matched Steve and Natasha’s. By the time he was finally descending from the aircraft, a full plan of action was forming in his head.

Steve was heading for the south exit, for another attempt at trapping Rollins, no doubt. That meant Natasha was trying to herd him away from the north exit. From what Bucky could remember of the area’s layout before landing, he could cut through the RV park in a certain direction, and quickly reach the nearby town. From there, he could get eyes on the highway, and hopefully with it, Rollins’s car as it ran from Steve and Natasha. If he only ran fast enough, he knew he could make it.

Luck seemed to finally be in his favor. Just as he left the RV park property and was approaching a nearby gas station, he caught a clear view of the axis road running parallel to the main highway behind it. Beneath the main road was an SUV trying to speed through a traffic light, heading right into Bucky’s direction. Other cars that had been trying to cross the intersection swerved to stop as the larger vehicle cut through their path, resulting in at least two drivers getting slammed into by those behind them.

Rollins skidded around a pair of smaller cars that had collided in front of him, but there was a split second of delay where he must have figured whether it was easier to go around or try to drive through the wreckage he caused. That single second gave Bucky the additional time he needed to stalk into the center of the road, right in the middle of the SUV’s path. Or rather, closer to his actual target of a road sign standing overhead just a couple of yards away, between him and the fleeing Hydra agent.

Once Bucky was close enough to the sign to confidently make his shot, he unveiled a silver metal sphere from a pouch at his hip and tossed it. The device latched neatly onto the far corner of the sign, its central red light blinking three times before exploding. The sign’s left leg collapsed upon impact, and within seconds, the entire structure was falling.

Despite still being several feet away, Rollins forced his car to a sudden stop to avoid getting caught up in any part of the collapsing structure. Meanwhile, Bucky strode straight through the damage, pulling out a gun from the holster on his back. When he was directly in front of the SUV, he brought the firearm up to eye-level, aiming it at the car windshield. He wasn’t actually going to shoot—not when he still couldn’t tell if Wanda was in the car, too—but Rollins didn’t know that.

Just when Bucky was close enough to start making out the face of Rollins and his fuming expression, the car began racing backwards, plowing carelessly into the two other cars that had collided in the middle of the intersection (luckily, the drivers inside had already left their vehicles). The whole while, Bucky could see Rollins continuing to keep his eyes trained on him rather than the road behind him. Which meant he didn’t see that he was driving straight towards Natasha.

The spy was ready for him, not even looking the least bit surprised to see Bucky there, too. She kept her gaze fixed on Rollins instead, not even tearing her eyes away when she braced her hands against the handlebars of her motorcycle and leapt up to crouch on the seat. Just when she was about to collide with the car, she jumped. At the last minute, the motorcycle swerved around the oncoming car, likely operating under some sort of auto-pilot feature. Meanwhile, Natasha landed squarely on the roof of the SUV, sliding a bit on the smooth surface. She sprawled out on her belly, each hand catching the edge of the roof on either side. Once she seemed to have gotten a secure grip, she chanced releasing one hand to unveil a knife previously holstered at her hip, jamming it into the space between the passenger’s side door and the roof. Using that as an anchor, she swung down to crouch against the door window, repeatedly jamming her foot against the surface.

While Natasha fought to get inside the car, Bucky strode into the path of her motorcycle as it continued running towards him. He had only a few seconds to brace himself for what he intended to do before the bike was practically upon him. With his metal hand, he gripped the bars of the bike, spinning it in place to travel in the opposite direction. As the bike swung around, Bucky went with it, springing upward so that he could meet it in the split second they were both in mid-air. The bike fell back to the earth with a booming thud, then took off once again, this time with Bucky aboard it.

Bucky rode after the van just as it was also spinning in place, getting back onto the axis road and heading towards the ramp back up onto the highway. Right where Steve was (hopefully) in place, waiting for them.

The whole while, Natasha continued to cling firmly to the side of the car. After a few more kicks, an opening was made in the window, shattering with more power than Bucky would’ve expected even with the Red Room’s serum in Natasha’s veins. Her feet then found purchase against the foot rail running along the bottom end of the car, holding herself there with her right hand remaining on her knife and her left hand free, aiming its Widow’s Bite gauntlets at the newly created hole in the window. At the same time, gunshots were going off in rapid succession, bullets madly puncturing the roof and sides of the car in clear efforts to hit Natasha. When that failed, Rollins tried swerving the car left and right, in attempts to dislodge her. The Avenger’s hold wavered, but ultimately, was never lost.

Those efforts to shake off Natasha became dangerous when the car reached the ramp onto the highway, veering dangerously close to the edge. Bucky forced the bike he was on to go faster, putting himself right on that precarious edge between the road’s incline and the speeding vehicle, so that he could press his metal hand against the latter’s side and shove it to a safer distance from the edge. While going at the speeds they were, the slightest push made the entire SUV rock extremely one way or the other. The car veered to the complete opposite side of the ramp, where the main highway started, and its raised cement edge scraped harshly against the rear door.

_Wanda. _If she was there, Bucky couldn’t see. He couldn’t see her!

Finally, the car made it back onto the highway. Steve came out of _nowhere_ from behind them, and soon fell into place alongside the vehicle on its other side, opposite of Bucky and Natasha. Apparently, with the two of them herding the car into a straightforward direction, Natasha was able to get a secure enough stance against the side of the moving car to effectively aim her Widow’s bite.

Through the rear window, Bucky could see the icy-blue blinking of electricity as the taser capsule landed its intended hit. The car instantly began to slow as the driver convulsed too strongly to keep his foot on the gas pedal. Steve slowed his bike to keep pace with the car, but Bucky didn’t. Instead, he kept up his speed until he was right behind Natasha, for she had twisted around and was now reaching for him. Once he was close enough, she released her hold on her knife where it was embedded into the car door, and she leapt back onto her bike, landing behind Bucky.

“He’s alone,” she shouted as Rollins seemed to regain his bearings, for the car picked up speed again. “Barnes, he’s alone!”

Bucky’s heart stalled in its place, and his breath caught in his throat. Rollins was alone. Wanda wasn’t with him—she wasn’t _here._

His despair over realizing his sweetheart still hadn’t been found was quickly swallowed up by a white-hot rage. They had been chasing this lead for nothing. He had sacrificed the Avengers’ trust in him yet again—and _wasted_ time that could’ve been spent actually locating Wanda—for _nothing._

_To hell with this, then._

Suddenly uncaring that the SUV was travelling at an intense speed, Bucky went for its tires. He brought the motorcycle at level with its front tire and grabbed with his metal hand. The rapidly spinning synthetic rubber ground roughly against the plates of his palm, sending sharp spikes of pain through the wiring that linked to his organic nervous system. He barely cared, he was so inflamed with ire. All that mattered to him was that the plates of his metal hand ripped into the structure of the tire, causing it to violently pop and disrupt the car’s entire center of balance. The SUV bobbed onto that side for a fleeting second, then skidded to a stop altogether whilst moving in a wide arc, in one last-ditch effort to turn and block Bucky and Natasha’s path.

Steve and Bucky both brought their bikes to a stop on either side of the damaged car. Bucky wasted no time after that removing himself from the vehicle, completely disregarding Natasha’s calls for him to wait. He stalked around the front of the car until he reached the driver’s side door. Through the windshield, he could see Rollins duck down, and through the driver’s side window, could see him scrambling to grab hold of one of several gun magazines scattered over the passenger seat, most likely to load one into the gun in his lap.

Bucky didn’t grant him enough time for that. Despite the damage his metal hand had sustained when he grabbed the moving car tire, he used it to seize the door handle and wrench the car door clean off its hinges. Rollins flinched at his sudden appearance, then made a futile attempt to swing at the Soldier’s face with the butt of his gun. Bucky easily caught the agent’s wrist in his uninjured flesh hand, gripping it with bruising force.

With that hold on the Hydra agent, the soldier hauled Rollins out of the car. He released his grip only to free his flesh-and-blood arm to slam against the agent’s throat, pinning him against the scratched rear door harshly enough to dent it. Rollins grunted at the impact, one hand bracing against Bucky’s shoulder as if in an weak attempt to push the soldier off of him, and the other hand pressing against his chest, where the now dead capsule of Natasha’s Widow’s Bite still clung to his jacket.

“Who shot at the Maximoffs?” Bucky hissed through gritted teeth. “Who’s after them? Where did they take her?”

Rollins gasped half a breath, though his eyes remained cold and hard. Unafraid.

Bucky shoved him into the car door again. “Where did they take her?” he demanded, voice cracking slightly on his next words. “Tell me!”

Rollins only grunted again, trying to squirm out of the Soldier’s grasp. “So, it’s true what they say?” he sneered. “She has you on _her_ leash, now?”

Bucky saw red, snarling at the mere implication that whoever this animal worked for had previously discussed his and Wanda’s relationship. It was too reminiscent of Andreas von Strucker, and how he’d tried to use that relationship against them last year. How he had been the last one to try to threaten them—and even their children, too—and how Bucky was determined to never let those threats be seen to fruition. He already had one agent of Hydra pinned here, and he was willing to _break_ him if it meant getting Wanda back. He could do it—he _would _do it, for his metal fist was already reeled back, poised to strike, and ready to force Rollins to give him the answers he wanted. The answers he _needed._

“Bucky.”

He could feel Steve’s presence behind him, close enough to reach out and touch his shoulder, but not daring to. Perhaps he was wary of his friend’s mental state during such a stressful endeavor. Or perhaps he was wary of being seen with the Winter Soldier in front of the civilian cars that had stopped on the road around them to watch the exchange. “Bucky,” he repeated gingerly, “don’t. We still need him.”

Bucky huffed a heavy, distraught breath. In spite of a part of him deep down knowing that Steve was right, that Rollins was of more use to them unharmed and able to answer their questions, he found he didn’t altogether _care. _Just so long as he could make someone else feel the way he did—make someone hurt as deeply as he was hurting right now, after they had ripped what he loved away from him when he hadn’t even been there to fight back. After he had already _let this happen._

“Buck. She wouldn’t want this.”

She wouldn’t. After the time he’d spent in Hydra, in seemingly unending bloodshed and violence, Wanda wanted more for him now. She would _expect_ more _out_ _of_ him.

“She’s not even here,” Rollins pointed out in malice. “Nobody gives a shit about—”

Bucky didn’t let him finish. He snapped, finally letting his unspoken threat swing forward. Rollins shied away from the incoming blow, but it didn’t matter. Bucky wasn’t aiming for him. His metal fist went through the surface of the car door instead, imprinting a full-fledged cavity in the already damaged material, only a scarce inch away from his captive’s head. Displaying the damage his rage was capable of, while still keeping it a harmless threat.

For now.

With Rollins now effectively spooked into silence, Bucky dropped him. The soldier took an embittered step back, and then another, his pace matching the miserably slow breaths he was forcing himself to take. Turning to the two Avengers behind him, he said emptily, “He’s all yours.”

And with that, he stalked over to where Steve’s motorcycle had been left parked in the middle of the road, and drove off on it from there.

* * *

The bus took Wanda all the way to Novosibirsk. She had taken a seat near the back next to an older woman who had at first regarded her indifferently, then soon fell asleep for the remaining four hours of the trip. It had presented Wanda with the ideal surroundings to pickpocket the two people sitting in front of them, who had foolishly left their bags under their seats where the former Sokovian scavenger could easily reach them from behind without anyone noticing.

She wasn’t proud to resort to such means again, but given that she was essentially flying blind for an indefinite period of time—though she hoped more than anything it wouldn’t take too long to find her way home—she figured it was the best she could do to preserve her own wellbeing. She only took what she knew she would need, such as travel snacks, another (this time smaller) bottle of water, and even some sort of pocket-sized flashlight that also folded out into a pen on one side and a can opener on the other. She didn’t have it in her heart to take money, especially from tourists who were likely just as aimless as she was at the moment, but she did take a small, seemingly newly purchased handbag to carry her finds in.

By the time she finally deboarded the bus, the sun had gone down. From what she could gather from various tourist maps and road signs she could find throughout the city, her destination was most likely outside the city, where the building lights didn't reach. The flashlight she had found was too miniscule to be of much help in that area, so it was with great reluctance that she called to her scarlet to light the way for her. Her powers burned her a little, although for once she didn’t mind it, for it was a comforting contrast to the frigid night air. However, it was still partially a curse. She knew wandering the Russian countryside with a ball of red light glowing at one of her palms was the equivalent to waving a large flag and yelling “The Scarlet Witch is right here! By all means, come and get me!” at the top of her lungs.

Fortunately, by the time she left the city and needed such lighting, it was fairly late in the night. So, if anyone else was also travelling through this part of the country at such a late hour, they weren’t willing to make themselves known. And they weren’t willing to get close enough for her telepathy to detect them.

As grateful as she was for no one nearby to potentially do her more ill-will, she was also unsettled by such solitude. Walking through a secluded part of unfamiliar land in the dead of night, guided only by light she had made for herself and memories that were not truly hers, all while _alone_…it was eerie.

But there was no use in turning back now.

Eventually, she felt a dirt path beneath her shoes. It was the first trace of human influence she found since leaving the city limits. She couldn’t see where it had begun, and so had to choose a direction at random to follow. She followed left on a whim, only half-confident it was the right way to go.

After another several minutes of tentatively wading through darkness, she discovered she’d made the right choice. By the light of her scarlet, she could only make out general shapes, but she could definitely tell that she was approaching a tall building. In the dark, it looked like some sort of mansion (and some foolhardy part of her fatigued brain even wanted to liken it to a haunted mansion).

There was still no indication of life nearby, even to her telepathy’s ear, but that didn’t stop her from being cautious as she drew closer, still using the dirt path she’d found as a guide towards the building’s front. If Natasha’s memory served her correctly (which had admittedly grown faint in her own memory since an entire year had passed since then), the academy had gone into disuse years ago, shortly after losing their most prized pupil, Natasha. Though just because it had been abandoned by its original keepers, she knew there was still a chance someone else had taken over.

Thankfully, some of that concern was alleviated when she finally reached the building itself. Upon feeling around in complete darkness, for she’d had to snuff out her main source of light to use the hand not carrying her stolen handbag of supplies, she found the edge of a door, and across its face, a thick plank of wood.

That was promising.

Wanda tucked her handbag under her arm so she could use both hands to get a grip on both the top and bottom end of the wooden board. She also pressed the top of one foot against the bottom of the door for good measure. Then she began to pull, silently urging her newfound enhanced strength to help her once more. At first, it seemed to be to no avail. But the witch was stubborn (especially after going through as much as she had that day). Eventually, she could feel her scarlet thrumming more actively in her veins, as if offering additional strength. With that, the wooden board over the door began to creak in protest as it was forced into submission. Wanda stumbled a little when it was suddenly released from its nailing, but ultimately held sturdy. Her supplies, however, tumbled to the ground.

After tossing the plank of wood aside, the witch gathered another ball of psionic light in her palm to help relocate her bag of supplies and any of said supplies that had fallen out of their holding. With everything she needed back in her grasp, she turned back to the door, finally able to let herself inside. Once she slipped through the threshold, her first instinct was to feel along the wall for proper lighting, even though rationally, she figured an abandoned building like this would no longer have working electricity.

To her surprise, she found a switch that did activate a few lights overhead. At first, she was relieved to be able to see where she was after so long wandering in the dark, but the relief was short-lived. If someone had kept the electricity running, that could easily mean that someone _was_ still using this building. Granted, now that she was inside, her telepathy further indicated that there was no one around to hear. But then again, her powers hadn’t been the most trustworthy source as of late.

To be safe, she turned the lights back off and resumed using her scarlet to find her way around. What she had seen in that brief moment of proper lighting prompted her towards a general direction, guided further, again, by the memory she had seen in Natasha’s mind over a year ago. However, this was where the memory had become more disjointed as Natasha’s emotions began to take over, blurring the passage between places and simply jumping from one moment to another. But she trusted the basics of what she had seen, knowing to walk parallel to the staircase down the main hall until she reached a large room at the end.

It was probably for the best that she couldn’t see very much right now. As it was, it felt strange simply _being_ in her friend’s old home (if such an abusive, twisted place could be called that). She knew what Natasha had been subjected to during her time here—hell, she had _seen _some of it in the former assassin’s mind. The dark memories that had been made here were so unsettling that they had been able to rattle her friend even now, years later.

And now, here she was, hoping that such an awful history preceded this academy, and would make others steer clear of it while she hid there.

At last, she found a door she recognized. She temporarily snuffed out her light again so she would have a free hand to wrestle with the door. However, it was surprisingly compliant, swinging open on her first try. When she summoned her scarlet again, it revealed the space before her to be a long, winding staircase that led downward. It was nerve-wracking having to navigate that in such limited lighting, essentially guessing where each step was, and praying that she didn’t miss one and fall.

At the bottom of the stairs was a hallway, which she followed to its end, until she passed through another unlocked door. By then, she trusted that she was safe enough underground to use the room’s own lights. They were working, but sparsely placed and dimly lit throughout the room.

If she had been unsettled by being aboveground in the dark, that was nothing compared to being _here _in the light. It had become decrepit since the memory she had seen in Natasha’s mind, but it was still obviously the “medical ward” (a crude one, at that). The room was cramped and dirty, lined on either side with stiff metal beds. Some such beds had straps at their sides, yawning open in anticipation to hold down their patients. There were rickety-looking carts strewn about, all littered with tools and equipment that had been clearly left uncleaned since their last use. Something stirred uneasily in Wanda’s chest at the sight, remembering how she had seen them used on Natasha in the memory. Remembering how she had _felt _what Natasha had been feeling during the procedure. Wanda had been unconscious during her own version of the same procedure, so that had been the first time she had realized what it felt like. The outcome of both procedures had since been undone, but that didn’t lessen how deplorable that experience had been for either of them.

Pushing down her discomfort, Wanda forced herself towards one of the medical carts. Then another, and another, and another, until she finally found one with supplies she could use. Namely, a roll of gauze bandaging. Once she had that in hand, she crossed over to the other end of the room, where there was a sink and a grimy mirror sitting in the corner.

The tap still worked, which again, unnerved her to think someone had been here recently enough to have turned it back on since the building’s abandonment. For now, though, she simply set her handbag of supplies and roll of gauze behind the sink head, then took off her jacket to stuff it behind there as well. The makeshift bandage she had fastened over where she cut out her tracker had been progressively slipping downward throughout the day. Now having her jacket comb over it as it was removed made it completely fall down her arm. She worked it off her wrist and haphazardly tossed it aside, knowing that would be the smallest case of neglect in the room. 

As the tap continued to run, Wanda rubbed an experimental finger at the wound she had given herself. It had already started to scab over, but that didn’t make her any less nervous about letting it go on so improperly treated. In short order, she went about rinsing the wound before it completely sealed up. A dull ache coursed through the area when she dabbed at it with a wet piece of gauze, but it wasn’t enough to cause concern. She wrapped some more gauze around the spot, and this time, the bandages stayed more snugly in place.

With that properly taken care of, Wanda finally allowed herself to feel the exhaustion that had been creeping its way back into her bones since leaving the bus. She listlessly recollected her handbag and jacket, carrying them in limp fingers with her as she all but dragged herself back to the other side of the room. She stopped only when she had found a bed that was without those disturbing restraints. She set her possessions on the cart beside it, then crawled onto the surface. Internally, she winced as she laid there, again hyper-aware of the sorts of things done to previous souls on these very beds. However, she was too tired to let it stop her at the moment. In fact, she was too tired to think much of anything. Even the food she had stolen. The moment her weight was off her feet, a huge wave of physical relief stampeded over her, anchoring her into place, sprawled out on the flat surface and staring up at the dingy ceiling.

_Finally,_ she could rest for more than just a few minutes. Granted, her surroundings were still disquieting, her stomach occasionally rolled from either hunger or sickness, and she could still feel the gun tucked into her jeans pressing into the small of her back. Not to mention, she was still hidden somewhere in the depths of Russia, miles away from her home, and from her brother and teammates. Her _family. _But, she was miles away from her would-be captors, too. Hopefully, she could stay hidden from them until morning, at the very least, when she would figure out her next move in getting home.

For now, she set one hand on her chest, and tried to lull herself to sleep with the repetitive motion of her thumb sweeping against the dog tags there.

_Good night, James,_ she thought, staring at the empty space beside her on the bed. She had spent nights without James before, but now in particular, she could feel his absence as viscerally as a missing piece of her flesh. Her eyelids fluttered shut with a troubled sigh, one last thought floating through her mind as she mused over how much she missed him. _I love you._

* * *

During his time at SHIELD, Jack Rollins had been a level-5, mission specialist agent. Which meant he had been trained not to give in easily if he was ever taken prisoner and interrogated. And he was irritatingly good at that now.

Since being brought into the Tower, he hadn’t spoken a word outside of the occasional curse as Steve roughly forced him through the halls and into an interrogation room. The Captain and Natasha had barely budged themselves since then, each of them standing stiff as boards on either side of the one-way mirror in the room as they tried to get answers out of him. So far, they had been at it for about half an hour, and every minute passed could be felt like a tangible burden to the team.

Sixteen hours. Their teammate had been missing for sixteen hours. Tensions were running higher than ever and the team’s collective patience was wearing thin. Not to mention, it was nearing two in the morning, so they were all tired, as well. The stress of it all was almost enough to make Natasha cave in and just let Barnes tear into Rollins like he had nearly done when they first apprehended him. Hell, even Steve seemed ready to rip the SHIELD traitor a new one, judging from how his voice was nearly a growl as he asked for the umpteenth time, “What do you know about the disappearance of Wanda Maximoff?”

Rollins merely shook his head, looking as though he was fighting off a smirk as he stared down at where his hands, which were handcuffed to the conference table. “You think I would tell you even if I could?” he questioned.

“I think the problem isn’t whether or not you can,” Natasha remarked. “I think it’s whether or not you’re willing.”

“And what’re you going to do about it?” Rollins challenged, making this the most he had spoken since he had been initially brought in. “I know how you two work, remember? You can try to threaten me if you want, but I know you don’t have the backbone to actually follow through with any of it. Especially not you, Rogers.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Steve returned darkly. He stepped closer to Rollins as he spoke, bracing himself against the edge of the table between them. Even under the poor lighting of the sole fluorescent lamp hanging overhead, Steve’s biceps could be seen bulging beneath his snug-fitted shirt. Natasha knew it was for show; that no matter how furious or scared Steve was for his friends, he would still refuse to become a bully to get what he needed from another bully.

Unfortunately, Rollins knew that, too. Like he’d said, he had worked with Steve and Natasha long enough to pick up on their inner workings. It added to her own agitation with this situation, that memory that she hadn’t been able to see members of her own STRIKE team were traitors. Traitors who could use what they learned from working with the Avengers against them in situations like this one.

“If you had any involvement in the disappearance of a high-profile, enhanced individual like Maximoff,” Natasha said, “the two of us are going to be the least of your worries.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rollins lifted his head smugly. “Is this the part where you threaten to sic that witch bitch’s new attack dog on me again?”

Steve bristled, leaning in closer. “What the hell did you just say?”

Natasha cut in before either of them could aggravate the other further. “Federal authorities all across the globe have already been antsy over her being in our custody. The moment we turn you in, and reveal you took her out of a controlled environment into a high-stress one, where it’s unknown how her enhancements will react, they’re gonna get even more anxious. And with no other leads, that’s gonna leave only one other person for them to hash out those feelings on. Take a wild guess who that’s going to be.”

It felt wrong, to say the least, to use other people’s fear of Wanda as a weapon like that. But it had the desired effect, prompting the briefest hints of apprehension to slip past the Hydra agent’s resolve. Not just at the mention of punishment at a federal level, but at the mention of not knowing how Wanda’s powers would react if she got too stressed. For him to get _this_ scared of her only confirmed that he did have an involvement in what happened with her.

Natasha honed in on that. “I can guarantee you, whatever your party has planned, it is not equipped to handle the fallout when she reacts. Or are you _still_ too insignificant in your co-worker’s operations to be kept informed on previous cases, like the failed Andreas von Strucker episode?”

The jab at his place in operations (or lack thereof) in both SHIELD and Hydra struck the intended nerve. “Hey, fuck off, OK? Who do you think you are, telling—”

Natasha interrupted him, taking her own step forward to lean against the table, looming closer to him like Steve had. “I’m the bitch who’s going to give your other eye a pretty little scar if I hear you refer to Maximoff as ‘that witch’ again.”

Rollins scowled. Fortunately, it seemed that working with her and Steve within SHIELD had also taught him that the Black Widow _didn’t_ bluff. Begrudgingly, he grumbled, “Hey, it’s like I said, I couldn’t say even if I wanted to. I just go wherever they tell me to go, when they tell me to go, and then I head back where I started for more instructions. I don’t ask any questions beyond that.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Steve demanded.

“Whoever offers the highest pay. Could be Hydra, could be some random splinter group, could be anyone.”

“But they have to go through Hydra to find you,” Natasha pointed out. “Who paid for this most recent endeavor?”

“Nobody you would know,” Rollins said with a pointed glare at Natasha.

“She was a level-6 agent when SHIELD was in its prime,” Steve reminded. “Try again.”

“What? You both didn’t function that much differently than I do now,” Rollins flashed back. “Only difference is you worked for whoever had the most authority, as opposed to money. You couldn’t tell me who worked beneath you even if I was the one with an assassin backing me up right now.”

Steve made an indignant sound, crossing his arms over his chest. “We know enough about who chose which side when it all went to hell.”

“Do you?” Rollins lifted his chin again. “Or do you only know what happened during the uprising? You know about any of the double-agents who weren’t caught until after? Or regular agents who defected later? Hell, none of us probably know how many are still hiding where their true loyalties lie. I know I, for one, wasn’t expecting Hydra’s number one asset to defect to the other side when he did.”

“What makes you think you know whose side he’s still on?” Natasha questioned. _Now _she was bluffing, trying to play off their cover that the Winter Soldier wasn’t truly with them. Even though he had clearly been with them when they flew the Hydra agent back here, Rollins didn’t have to know that Barnes was their ally. The less anyone knew about their resources (for this very reason of potentially lingering double-agents), the better.

“I guess I don’t know,” Rollins admitted. “After how many times they put his brain through a blender, _he_ probably doesn’t even know where to go.”

His smirk returned as he turned his gaze back on Steve. “He still knew you, you know. The rest of the STRIKE team, we were all there to see it. Rumlow and I were right there when they fried him one last time. Apparently, he’d remembered you. Saw him getting all weepy about it, and everything.”

“OK, that’s enough. We’re done here.” Natasha didn’t have to glance at Steve to know he was all but boiling in anger over a comment like that. She placed a hand on his arm to gently urge him out of the room with her. Not just for his sake, but also for Barnes, who she knew could hear and see this conversation, as well. She figured they were all due for a break by now anyways, and could resume the interrogation afterward.

On the other side of the one-way mirror sat Barnes. A small end table and chairs were brought in for him and Tony, so the inventor could work on repairs to the soldier’s metal arm, which had gotten severely scraped up during the highway chase after Rollins. It was unusual to see the two together on such collegial terms, the least of which reasons being that Barnes had justified Tony’s reservations about him being let into the field by disobeying orders during a mission _again _(it was by sheer luck that witnesses of the highway pursuit were already spreading theories that it was coincidental for the Avengers and the Winter Soldier to go after the same SHIELD-Hydra double-agent. And, it _had_ helped that Barnes had left the scene separately from them).

“Well, that went well,” Tony commented dryly, not bothering to look up from the tweezers he was using to reconnect a couple of wires under the plates of Barnes’s palm.

Steve uttered a heavy sigh, briefly shooting a concerned glance at Barnes. When the other soldier didn’t offer any reaction of his own, he said, “Well, the things he _did _say…I don’t think it was all talk. I do think he genuinely doesn’t know why they went after Wanda.”

“He knows,” Barnes said lowly, fixing a murderously dark glare on the man on the other side of the window in front of him. “I can see it in that smug fucking grin.”

“He at least knows where they were headed with her,” Natasha conceded. “If his instructions included being at the dock where Luna was found, then he was involved enough to know where she was last seen in this state. And I trust even a meathead like him could figure out where they wanted to go from there, if he was the one providing them with the necessary shipping equipment.”

“We still need their motive, though,” Steve pointed out. “That could give us insight as to whether or not they have any incentive to hurt her.”

It was likely only audible due to her close proximity, but Natasha thought she heard Barnes exhale a ragged breath.

Simultaneously, Tony uttered a frustrated sound. “Well, like you guys said, he’s probably too low on the chain of command to have been told the overall plan. My guess would be for the event of something like this, where we get our hands on him.”

“He can still give us names,” Natasha insisted. “All we need to know is who hired him to be at the dock when he was, and from there, we can find further leads without him.”

“Only problem is, we’ve gotta get him to talk,” Steve grumbled. “For a meathead, he _did_ serve as a mission specialist agent for at least seven years. Can’t imagine he’ll make it easy for us.”

Natasha expressed her agreement with a short, irritable sigh. She could hear Barnes was impatient too, from how the mechanics of his metal arm twitched, made louder than usual by some of the plates being temporarily removed for Tony to work. Said inventor sat back in his chair, setting down his equipment for a moment.

“Yeah, well, that’s the bad news,” Tony remarked as he fished around for something in his pants’ pocket. After just a couple of seconds, he pulled out his phone and offered it to his teammates. “On the bright side, we did come into some good news. We finally got through to Wilson.”

Steve took the offered phone, though he was already nodding his assent before he read the messages Tony had pulled up.

Tony went on whilst also resuming work on the metal limb pinned to the table in front of him. “I still don’t know where exactly he was while he was tracking down that goon that had been trespassing on the Facility’s campus, but he said, and I quote, ‘I’ll_ make_ the flight there fifty minutes.’ And that was right when you guys sat down with Heartbreak High over there, so he should be arriving here any minute now.”

“That is good news,” Steve remarked distractedly. Then he glanced at Natasha beside him. “What about Fury and Hill? Have they replied with anything?”

Despite already knowing the answer, the spy sought out the burner phone in her own pocket for further confirmation. “No. But knowing them, I’m sure they’re working on it. You know how Fury likes to make his involvement in these things known only at the last minute, for dramatic effect.”

Tony snorted the beginnings of a laugh at that. “Well, if he does know something about this particular case, I’d prefer he come forward with it _before _it costs me property damage as bad as the compound’s.”

Natasha noticed Barnes grimace at the memory. Though, she didn’t spare him any attention beyond that, for she promptly busied herself with checking the burner phone a second time, and then a third time, almost compulsively. Nothing new had come in, but that didn’t stop her from feeling like she was missing something somehow. Something important. Something like…

Something like her personal phone buzzing frantically in her other pocket.

Natasha stepped away from the men around her, as if she instinctively knew this was something she would need to tend to alone. Her sudden departure was noticed, of course, especially by Steve, who called after her.

“It’s fine, just give me a second,” she offered lamely before stepping out of the room and into the floor’s main hall. Given the late hour, no one else was wandering around, giving her some much needed peace and quiet to tend to the incoming call. The number calling her simply said “Blocked,” and she could feel her blood begin to race as it occurred to her what an unknown caller coming in now could mean. Perhaps there would be some relation to Wanda, like a ransom message from whoever took her.

The moment the phone was pressed to her ear, Natasha snapped sharply, “What?”

The person on the other end of the line breathed a slight chuckle, sounding half-surprised and half-amused. “Well, hello to you, too, Natalia.”

Natasha’s blood instantly went cold. Of all the voices she had expected to hear, this was the least of them. She hadn’t expected to hear from that voice _at all_ ever again.

No…it couldn’t be her. It was anyone but her.

There was a clearly feigned _tsk _of sympathy from the other end of the call. “Oh, what’s the matter, my dear sister?” she questioned, voice painted with a jestfully lighter version of her natural Russian accent. A mocking version of the one Natasha shed long ago, if she ever heard one. “Don’t tell me you’re too busy with your new family to spare even a minute to catch up with old friends.”

She was shivering. Actually shivering, despite the stifling heat of Stark Tower as it worked to combat the outdoor winter air. Shivering as if she was back there, in the Russian winter. With _her._

Eventually, she managed to force out, “What do you want?”

“Oh, she sounds mad.”

Natasha’s heart twisted to hear that voice drop to a whisper, seemingly speaking to someone else. Possibly someone else from her past—someone else she had left behind when she fled to join SHIELD, instead.

“Are we bothering you, Natalia? Well, then, I guess you should have thought of us before you sent your _new _favorite sister over to come bother us, in turn.”

None of that made any sense to Natasha. “What?”

“She’s cute, I’ll give you that. Almost like…how would you say, a…a little mouse? The ones that are constantly flittering about in places where they’re not wanted.”

Natasha didn’t bother to wonder what was meant by that. She was still stuck on what was said before. _Your new favorite sister…_

_Oh, my God._

Yelena had found Wanda.

Desperation bled into Natasha’s voice before she could stop it. “Where are you?”

Suddenly, Yelena’s voice turned harder. Bitter. “Where do you think? I’m not like you, Natalia. I stayed home. Even when everyone else gave up on everything we built—just because _you _left us—I stayed at home. And now, apparently, that means I get the pleasure of meeting your new sister.”

Again, Natasha reacted without thinking. She shook her head in warning, even though no one was around to see it. “If you engage with her, you’ll be sorry, Yelena.”

“No, _you’ll_ be sorry, Natalia,” Yelena flashed back, her voice still drenched in bitterness. So much so, that it seemed that she had taken Natasha’s words as more of a threat directly from her rather than a genuine warning against provoking Wanda. Did Yelena even know about Wanda’s powers? The last time Natasha had seen her, they had both been working so far underground in the Red Room that their only source of intel was from their handlers. Said handlers had since scattered to the winds, so there was no telling where Yelena was, or how she was getting information about things like Natasha’s new team’s dynamics.

Then again, even if Yelena did (or didn’t) know that Wanda was enhanced, would it matter? If Wanda’s condition had compromised her ability to use her powers…

“You may think you’re invulnerable,” Yelena went on spitefully, “just because you’ve found a place to hide amongst a band of men in gaudy costumes. But I have my ways of getting by, too. I can even afford my own collection of lackeys, if I need them. And I think it’ll be easy to find a place among them for a new recruit.”

“Save your breath,” Natasha retorted. Apparently, the familiar sound of Yelena’s cockiness in her abilities had summoned Natasha’s own self-assuredness to return. “She isn't so easy to manipulate. Least of all by a second-rate Widow.”

There was a brief second of pause. Natasha knew it was Yelena trying to reign in her temper. “There are no Widows here,” she hissed, said temper bleeding through despite a clear effort made to stifle it. “Not anymore. And if the _mishka_ truly doesn’t want to cooperate, then we’ll find other uses for her.”

“Yelena—”

“A witch that’s currently wanted by at least a hundred different governments? That ought to attract a heavy penny in the underground world, don’t you think?”

_Oh, God._

Yelena did know about Wanda’s powers. And judging by the malice lining her every word, she didn’t care. Did her resentment towards Natasha for leaving—for finding a “new family,” as she’d put it—run so deep that she was willing to confront a power unlike any other in the world, much less what she had likely seen before, without any regards for the consequences on herself?

Could Wanda even _use_ that power?

Natasha wasn’t willing to find out the answer to either question. Not ever, and certainly not this way.

“If you didn’t want to see her go, then I suppose you should have thought of that before you let—”

“Yelena,” the spy said firmly. “I won’t warn you again. You won’t be able to overpower her. I can guarantee you of that.”

There was another beat of silence. This time, it was agonizing, since Natasha couldn’t possibly imagine how Yelena would react to a situation like this, much less a warning like that.

“I guess we’ll see.”

With nothing more, the line went dead.

Natasha shakily released a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. For several heartbeats, she simply hugged the phone to her chest, still reeling from what had just occurred.

Yelena had found Wanda.

Yelena had found _her._ After Natasha left her behind years ago, not even knowing if Yelena was still alive given the life they’d led, Yelena had somehow managed to contact her.

And she was after Wanda. It didn’t sound as though she was the one who had been after the Maximoff twins from the start. If anything, Yelena had sounded genuinely perturbed to see Wanda. She’d done all but accuse Natasha of sending the witch there just to flaunt her new life in front of her.

Regardless, she couldn’t afford to let Yelena try to engage with Wanda. Either Wanda would hurt Yelena in self-defense, not realizing who she was to Natasha, or Yelena would capture Wanda and pass her off to someone even worse, _because _she knew who Wanda was to her.

She had to figure out where they were. She had to stop that confrontation from happening.

_“I’m not like you, Natalia. I stayed home.”_

Home. What did Yelena consider home…?

_“There are no Widows here. Not anymore.”_

During their training, the Red Room had rotated quite a few locations to use throughout Russia, for security purposes.

But there was one place where they spent the _most _time. Where she and Yelena had actually felt close to one another as they rose above the others in the program. Or at least, as close as two young girls could be while being shaped to become ruthless, unfeeling killers. It was where the rift between them had first formed as well, as more favoritism began to show towards Natasha. One of the academy buildings that had maintained the organization’s cover story of a dance troop, to protect its operation from outside eyes. Although, from what Natasha could remember, it had been shut down shortly after she defected to the side of SHIELD, as had most of the other campuses Natsha knew of, to keep her from revealing their locations to SHIELD.

It was a stretch. But deep in her gut, Natasha could feel it to be right.

It had to be right.

Natasha sucked in a breath, and with it, forced herself to regather some of her composure. She swiftly turned on her heel and barged back into the interrogation room, only half-certain she had efficiently compartmentalized her emotions. Although, that thought was promptly blown to hell as her voice suddenly failed her once she met the expectant looks of Steve, Tony, and Barnes upon entry.

After a heartbeat or two, she finally managed in a soft, disbelieving voice, “I found her.”

“What?” Steve exclaimed. Despite what should have been good news, he, and Tony and Barnes all stiffened.

“I found her,” Natasha repeated dazedly, holding up her phone as if for proof, even though all traces of Yelena’s call were already gone.

“Wanda?” Tony asked, sounding genuinely uncertain whether he understood what Natasha was getting at.

“Was that her?” Barnes said at the same time, leaning forward in his seat. He likely would have sprung up completely, had Tony not strapped his metal arm down for work.

“No,” Natasha answered, “but it was someone who has eyes on her.”

God, she never did find out where exactly Yelena and Wanda were in regards to each other. She only had the general location in mind.

“We need to go,” she urged desperately. “We need to get to her before they grab her and try to sell her to the highest bidder.”

“_What?_” Steve exclaimed again, looking understandably horrified. “Who? Sell her where?”

Natasha didn’t answer, instead glancing at Tony. “You said Sam is going to be here any minute?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll set a course for our destination and forward it to the system in the jet he’s using,” Natasha announced, barely allowing herself a chance to breathe between words. “If we time it right, we can have wheels back up as soon as Wilson arrives to pick us up.” She tipped her head towards the plates of Barnes’s arm that were still pried open. “How much longer will that take?”

“Uh…” Tony glanced down at the exposed wiring before him. “Just a couple of minutes.”

“You have until Sam gets here. Give or take however long it takes us to suit up again,” Natasha declared. Because yes, she had completely surrendered to the notion that Barnes was coming with them. In fact, she had altogether given up trying to keep him away from missions that involved Wanda. Turning to Steve, she added, “While I’m downstairs, can you take Rollins to a holding cell? We’ve got no use for him now.”

“Yeah, I can, but—”

“Good,” Natasha cut him off, already turning on her heel again to leave. “Meet me at the hanger when Sam gets here. Jarvis should send a notification when he is.”

“Nat—”

She didn’t stop, striding back out into the hallway and heading towards the stairs. She knew with her blood still pumping vigorously in her system, as if the confrontation with Yelena had been a physical one, she would surely go stir-crazy if she trapped herself in the small space of the elevator. However, she didn’t manage to get far before she heard someone’s footsteps bounding after her, and a hand gently grabbed her wrist.

“Nat.” It was Steve. He managed to slow her down, but she kept walking, half-pulling him along with her. She couldn’t lose momentum. She couldn’t think anymore about what this had become. Of _who_ had become involved, and _where_ they were going to be—

“Love, please.”

_Damn it._ She _had_ to stop when he called her that. Steve was usually extremely mindful of her poor history with interpersonal relationships, and thus, kept the usual expressions of affection at a minimum. Especially when they were in work-partners mode. For a pet name to slip through his resolve now meant that he was deeply worried about her, and she couldn’t ignore how unfair it was to put him through that when he was already just as stressed as she was about their missing teammate.

Once she’d come to a full stop and turned to face him, Steve’s hand slid down to hold hers tightly. “You look white as a sheet. Talk to me. What happened? Who did you talk to?”

Her voice failed her yet again, her mind still racing solely from the thought of how they had to hurry. They had to hurry, they had to _hurry,_ because if Yelena picked a fight with Wanda…

“I…it’s…” She sighed shortly, annoyed with herself for being this damn _weak_ over someone she had already chosen to leave behind her long ago. “It was just…someone I didn’t expect to ever hear from again. Someone I only knew back when…before I was with SHIELD.”

She could see Steve processing that, his concerned frown deepening as it occurred to him what that meant. He knew about the Red Room, of course, but whatever he knew had come from a file when they worked at SHIELD together rather than from her. Again, it was all a matter of him trying to be mindful of how difficult it was for her to address things like that, given her history of being taught to ignore the parts of one’s self that made them emotionally compromised. Things that made them act the way she was acting right _fucking_ _now._

“Do you think they’re the ones who—”

“No. I don’t know,” she said quickly, because technically, she still didn’t know who had ordered the original hit on the Maximoffs. All she was sure of was that it hadn’t been Yelena. “I just know we have to hurry, because she’s not going to be afraid to hurt someone like Wanda.”

Steve clenched his jaw. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Not if we get there fast enough, maybe.”

“Where? Nat, where are we going?”

Natasha squeezed the hand he was holding, suddenly grateful it was there, giving her something else to think of—something else to _feel_ for the moment. “Somewhere I’ve never wanted to go back to,” she admitted softly. “My past.”

* * *

The feeling of someone else’s consciousness brushing against hers woke Wanda. She startled at the sensation, immediately recollecting where she was and bracing herself for a confrontation with whoever was attracted to a place like this. At first glance, there seemed to be no one there. Although, Wanda knew her telepathy couldn’t be mistaken. Not when it could feel _someone _else there this vividly.

After a couple of tense heartbeats, she spotted what her telepathy had picked up on, and relaxed with a nervous sigh. On the floor right by her bed were a few rats scuttling about. One in particular had its head held high, sniffing the air around the cart where she had left her bag of supplies. Its thoughts—or emotions, rather, as she’d learned animals were more ruled by—were positively buzzing in excitement, likely from the smell of food in her bag.

All three rats scattered the moment she swung her legs over the side of the bed, disappearing into the shadows. As they went, the primal emotions that Wanda’s telepathy had been picking up on subsided.

Sitting up also caused the witch’s head to suddenly spin, and a sharp pang to pierce through her stomach. Her first inclination was to cough, thinking it was more of her sickness. Then she remembered there was nothing in her stomach to be sick from. She had gone the entire day before without eating, a stunt she hadn’t pulled since she’d lived on the streets of Sokovia with Pietro. The pain of her hunger here wasn’t as bad as some of the worser episodes of back then, and she briefly wondered if that was another side effect of the traces of the serum she received from James, the ability to function longer on less amounts of food.

Whatever the matter, she promptly worked her jacket back on and seized her meager collection of supplies, and she made her way out of the room at last. Despite her hunger, she would have rathered wait until she was clear of the filthy, decrepit underground medical ward before finally dipping into the stolen food she had with her. There were primarily snack foods, such as little bags of trail mix and beef jerky, and a pair of miniature pretzel bags, like those that were usually handed out during long airplane flights. The pretzels had become mostly crushed, but they still appeased the witch’s hunger by the time she finally got to them.

She wandered the academy as she ate out of her handbag, giving no regards to rationing the food. At first because she was so desperate for _something,_ and then under the justification that she didn’t plan to stay here for long. Just because she had found a sufficient shelter for the night didn’t mean that she could stay in the one place for long. She was certain she was still being hunted, and prey that was lying in wait was definitely easier to catch than prey on the run. Not to mention, she had a slight suspicion that this building wasn’t as abandoned as she’d first though. Seeing it in the daylight, complete with the large mirror in the ballroom cracked and boards nailed over the windows in the hallway, did nothing to convince her otherwise.

Besides, if she could manage it, she wanted to find her way home on her own rather than sit around, listlessly waiting for her teammates to find her, first.

However, as she wandered around the bedraggled husk of a building from her friend’s past, a questionable thought crossed her mind: what if she didn’t go home? From what she had heard from her abductors before she escaped them, the person they had truly been after was James. If she went home, would she just be leading them back to him? She certainly wouldn’t be able to shake that feeling if she saw him now, even if it wasn’t true. Yes, if Hydra had known where she was all this time, they had technically found James already. But as far as she knew, no one outside of the Avengers’ group was aware he was living amongst them, so there was a chance he was still safe.

But where else could she go? Her connection to her scarlet had become so shaken as of late. And, she still didn’t know the full scale of what—or who—she was up against. She was _lost,_ in every sense of the word.

Wanda sighed shortly, upset and frustrated with herself for getting into this mess. For uselessly lingering in one place when James was potentially in danger, somewhere far away. She wasn’t even sure exactly where; if something had happened, leaving him stuck on his and Steve’s mission in London still, or if he’d made it home. In fact, she still didn’t even know if her brother had made it home, or had received any sort of help after he had been shot.

Her _brother_ had already been hurt in all of this, and she had no way of finding out what happened after the fact.

_We shouldn’t have left the Tower,_ she thought remorsefully. _How did I let Pietro convince me to leave?_

_Because he was worried about you getting sick. Because you wanted to get him alone to tell him what you were hiding from him. _

She sighed again, silently chiding herself for entertaining such upsetting memories. It was too late to ponder such things. What had happened had already passed, and none of it could be changed.

Especially not now.

Wanda was in the midst of passing by one of the windows on the building’s ground floor when she thought she heard something outside. The window was boarded, like all the others she’d seen so far, but the board had been nailed haphazardly over the surface, at a slight angle. That left a small space of visibility where she could see the dirt path she had followed to the building’s front door. When she first looked through said opening, there seemed to be nothing there to see. Just brown and grey earth, with dying shrubs sparsely scattered here and there on either side of the dirt road. Though faintly, Wanda could’ve sworn she heard _something_ coming up the road. It almost sounded like…like the thrum of a car engine.

Just when she was about to tell herself she was hearing things, probably going mad from just a few hours of isolation, her suspicion was confirmed. First, through a small cloud that had puffed up at the very edge of the horizon. Then as that puff of dirt quickly grew, unveiling itself to be coming from beneath the speeding tires of a large, dove-grey truck. A truck that was tearing down the path right towards _her._

_No… _

There was a chance—a _small_ chance—that whoever was coming wasn’t coming _for_ her. Again, she’d had a feeling that someone else had been revisiting this place, hence why some of the utilities still worked. If she managed to stay out of sight, perhaps they would come and go without any conflict.

Before the truck could reach the part of the road that wrapped around the side of the academy, and thus would only be seconds away from reaching its front, Wanda shot across the room, bolting up the staircase that loomed over the main hall. She could still faintly hear the engine of the vehicle outside—could hear it echoing the thrumming of her own heart as she desperately flew up the stairs to the second floor before the engine stopped, and whoever had come actually made it inside the building.

Upstairs, there was another main hallway that led to various other rooms. Wanda darted down the length of the hall until she reached a random door at the middle. With the hand not holding her bag of supplies (which was now just two small bottles of water and a miniature flashlight pen) to her side, she shoved the door open and then closed it behind her, finding herself in another rehearsal studio of sorts. There was a mirror embedded along one of the walls, like that which was in the ballroom downstairs. Although, this one had clearly seen less damage.

What mattered most to Wanda, however, was an additional door tucked into the corner immediately to her left. It was obviously a storage closet, seemingly barely three-feet wide. It was made even smaller by the fact that it was still half-full with boxes of supplies. Something about the additional layer of distance it provided from outside visitors, and its unassuming size made her feel somewhat safer about hiding in there (there being a pretty big emphasis on _somewhat_).

She tucked herself into the minuscule storage space, sitting as close to its farthest wall as she could get with a pair of heavy cardboard boxes in the way. Not trusting her scarlet, she reached for the gun tucked into the back of her jeans, pulling it out while also internally hoping she wouldn’t have to use it. Just when she felt like she had settled into a sufficiently protected position, she heard a noisy clatter from the room just below her, where the academy’s entryway was. Where the _door_ was.

Someone was inside.

Breathing deeply, Wanda held up her firearm, pointing it right at the door before her. Hoping, and _willing_ herself to be braced for anything. And anyone.


	8. Chapter 8

After a brief commotion from downstairs, the academy building fell dead silent. Wanda felt her breath hold in her chest, afraid of being unable to hear anyone—neither physically nor telepathically—yet knowing they were there, regardless. She tucked her knees to her chest and pressed back against the cardboard boxes behind her as closely as possible, as if she could somehow make herself smaller, or somehow melt into the shadows around her and disappear completely.

_This is ridiculous, _she chided herself._ I am an Avenger. Scarlet or no scarlet, if someone’s come here searching for a fight, I can still give them one!_

Wanda forced herself to breathe, assuring herself that no matter who was here, she could manage them. After all, they had come in only one car, as opposed to an entire party of them. And from the way they had approached, speeding down the road with no effort made to hide their arrival, they weren’t professional agents or bounty hunters, or whoever else would be attracted to a place like this.

Just as she could feel her rationale beginning to assuage her, she felt something brush against her subconscious. It was heavily muffled by the two doors in the way, but it was unmistakably the feeling of another consciousness trying to enter her telepathy’s ear. A sign of someone nearing her hiding place.

_Easy, easy,_ she urged herself as she felt her newfound confidence rapidly leaving her. The hand that wasn’t holding a gun rose over her mouth, afraid of even the slightest breath giving her away. Whoever was nearby must have been familiar with the layout of the building, for none of the weathered floorboards reacted for them the way they had previously creaked under Wanda’s feet. As if the person knew exactly where to step to avoid being detected. The only indication that they were there was the witch’s telepathy picking up faint hints of their mind. Although, that surface activity repetitively came and went to her inner ear.

_They must be going room by room._ Wanda’s heart crawled into her throat. She couldn’t remember exactly how many rooms had come before hers, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before the new arrivals inevitably reached it. Not to mention, if they were doing such a thorough search of the building, that only confirmed they were looking for something. Or looking for _her._

In spite of herself, she felt fear overwhelm her again. She felt absolutely worried sick.

_Oh God…_ She was _going to be_ sick.

_No! No, no, no, no! Not now!_

She gritted her teeth, doing her best to shove down a cough. It partially escaped her, a husky breath slipping between her lips and through her nose. It was low, but in her panicked state, Wanda was worried it was enough to completely give her away. And worst of all, another cough was climbing within her.

Suddenly, her very being froze in its place. The doorknob to the room she was in rattled. Then it clicked as the door opened altogether. Seconds later, a shadow crept into view. The closet door to Wanda’s hiding place was a shutter-style door, meaning she could see the rough outline of a dark, lithe figure step in front of the layered panels.

Her muscles tensed. Her heart was pounding so feverishly in her chest, a small, irrational part of her was convinced _that _would reveal where she was hiding.

Wanda could see the shadow growing as the newcomer neared, and she could hear the surface of their mind more clearly (though somewhat stifled by the one door still in the way). The witch could feel her scarlet stirring into action in her blood, setting a dull glow at her wrists and palms as it reacted to her fear of being discovered. Slowly, she raised her free hand from her mouth, holding it up in preparation to lash out if she needed it to. With her other hand still holding up her stolen handgun, she swore to herself that she was ready for whatever was about to happen.

Within an instant, the door swung open. Wanda instantly startled, jerking backwards with a twitch of her scarlet-tangled fingers. However, neither her scarlet nor her gun lashed out at the person in front of her.

“Wanda?”

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Her heart continued pounding in her chest, though no longer out of fear. “Nat?”

“_Bozhe…_” Natasha’s form sagged in a half-relieved, half-wearied sigh. She stepped forward with a hand outstretched. “Come here.”

Wanda numbly took the hand offered to her, letting the handbag of water bottles that had been in her lap roll uselessly onto the floor as she did. Even her gun fell from the limp fingers of her other hand, clattering against the wooden floors. Wanda barely heard it. Shocked didn’t begin to describe what she was feeling.

Natasha was here. Natasha had found her. _She had been found._

For some reason, she couldn’t quite process it. Perhaps it was the fact that sickness was still trying to rise within her—though, she felt thankfully free to unleash the budding coughs now—or, maybe it was the fact that now she could hear the surface of Natasha’s mind even more clearly now. With it, she could feel a more visceral influence of the spy’s agitation and dread for something unknown.

Outwardly, though, Natasha was as composed as ever. She stood with her back straight in confidence and her stance powerful in one of her Black Widow suits. As Wanda hunched in on herself to finally cough the traces of illness she had previously been fighting, the spy placed a hand on her back. The paltry amount of food Wanda had eaten was evidently not enough to fuel a complete episode of morning sickness, so the fit was over blessedly quick.

“Are you OK?” Natasha pressed once Wanda seemed more with it, keeping a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Then she glanced this way and that, some of that frantic energy Wanda could sense beneath the surface slipping past her external visage. “Is anybody else here? Did you see anyone else come through here?”

“No,” Wanda promised softly, taken aback by the intensity of the emotions she could hear humming in Natasha’s mind. “No, I haven’t heard or seen anyone since I got here yesterday.”

Suddenly, the intense anxieties Wanda, herself, had been feeling right before Natasha arrived returned to her in a flood. She clutched the spy’s arm desperately. “Pietro! Is he—?”

“He’s alright,” Natasha assured, covering Wanda’s hand with her own. Her gaze, however, continued scanning their surroundings. “Emergency services got to him in time. He’s at the Tower right now. Tony will let us know if anything about his healing progress changes.”

Wanda nearly cried. _Pietro’s alright. He’s healing. He's _alright.

Natasha only allowed her a second to process her relief. “We don’t have much time. Come on. We can’t stay here.”

After sparing only a brief moment to collect the gun Wanda had dropped, Natasha handed the firearm back to her. Then she gripped Wanda’s hand and began urgently pulling her along, back the way they had both come. Wanda fumbled to keep up, stuffing her gun back into its place in the back of her jeans as they went.

“What about James?” the witch asked. “Did he make it home? Does he know what—?”

Natasha scoffed. “Oh, trust me. He knows. But, don’t worry about him. Once he sees you here, he’ll be—”

“Wait.” Wanda brought herself to a sudden halt, the unexpectedness of it probably the only thing able to make Natasha stop with her. “James is here?”

A half-hearted smirk touched the corner of Natasha’s mouth. “You honestly think we could keep him away?”

Wanda wasn’t comforted. A storm of emotions raged inside her chest—relief and terror chief among them. From what she could gather, Hydra wasn’t anywhere near them at the moment, but that still didn’t stop her from feeling like they had played into their trap somehow.

Of course, a part of her knew Natasha was right, though. James resigning to doing nothing while someone he loved was stolen from him, possibly in danger, just wasn’t him. He was too independent to trust someone else to look after them for him. And he was too loyal to her—too _good_ to her—to leave her fate in the hands of others. Especially after the way they had left things between them.

“Wanda?” Natasha said, gently tugging on the witch’s hand for her attention. “What is it?”

Wanda only shook her head. “Not now. You’re right, we just need to get out of here.”

Natasha hesitated, clearly not appeased by that. But after a heartbeat or so, she dropped the matter with only a curt nod and continued to lead the way down the hall. As they rounded a corner and began descending down the staircase, Wanda could see him at the bottom, planted in front of the same window she had watched their truck pull up through, with a massive gun posed at the ready.

_James._

“Barnes,” Natasha called when she and Wanda were halfway to him, “where’s Steve?”

He didn’t answer. The moment he glanced towards the spy’s voice, his eyes landed on Wanda behind her, and he froze. Wanda froze as well, feeling Natasha’s hold on her slip away once she was on the very last stair step.

Natasha didn’t wait on either of them. Instead, she strode right past James, still calling Steve’s name. In spite of her justified urgency, Wanda chose to believe the spy also wanted to let her and James have a moment alone.

God, she had missed him. It had only been two days since they had last seen each other, but she’d _missed him._ Despite her lingering fear of whoever had tried to lure him out of hiding, now all she could feel was all-encompassing relief to see him again. To see those bright, piercing blue eyes that always made her feel safe.

However, the longer he stood there, slowly lowering his gun and simply staring back at her, the more she worried something was wrong. Was he struggling to believe that she was really there, like she had when she’d seen Natasha? Or was he upset with her, and the way she had run off after Pietro had been shot? The way she had thrown herself into danger, giving all of this a chance to happen in the first place? Hell, _how did_ he find out she was gone?

“James,” she whispered, unable to move from her place, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

She flinched as the gun he’d been holding clattered noisily to the floor. He simply abandoned it as he made his way over to her, reaching her in just three long strides. He immediately wrapped his arms around her, nearly crushing her against his chest and even lifting her off of her feet for a moment. Once the surprise of it wore off, she clutched back at him just as tightly. Or at least, as tightly as she could in her sick, still half-starved state.

She had missed this, too. The feel of him, so strong and physically powerful against her. The soft whirs of his metal arm (though they were barely audible through the thickness of his uniform jacket), and his hair tangled between her fingers. Strength, and heat, and familiarity she had been deprived of for days, with the time feeling even longer after not knowing when the separation would be over. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had kissed him.

Abruptly, he peeled himself away. He uttered a deep, shuddering breath as he did, as if it was the first one he’d taken since he saw her last. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

She couldn’t spare the thought to formulate an answer. She was still taking him in, feeling along his form as if to convince herself he was there. She noticed something…_off_ about the plates of his metal hand. They were there, but they felt looser. Like they’d been repaired _again_ recently—like he’d gotten _hurt._

He gave her a cursory glance, too, pressing his hands to either side of her face, down her arms, and against her torso, before going back to her arms. He must have felt the gauze on her arm through her jacket, for he instantly knew to push the lapel aside to see the upper edge of the bandaging. “Your arm…”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Wanda insisted. “I did that to myself.”

He stared at her again, this time in dismay. “You _what?_”

“The tracker,” she explained, scratching where the implant used to be. “I cut it out, because they were trying to use it.”

“Yeah? So were we.”

Wanda looked up at the sound of someone else’s voice, finding Steve approaching them from the direction of the main dance studio. Natasha was close behind him, looking just as perturbed as James did.

“_You_ cut out the tracker?” the spy asked incredulously.

Before Wanda could even formulate an answer, Steve was hooking his shield onto the back of his stealth suit, and then pulling her into an embrace of his own. She noticed his touch was significantly lighter than usual, barely touching her as he held her against his side. It felt odd, making her feel like she was made of glass.

Despite his avoidant touch, Steve’s voice sounded just as relieved as James had been as he spoke into her hair, “Don’t ever do that to us again. We were so worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Wanda replied, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say. And also because she was distracted by the surface of his mind rapidly clicking, similar in pattern to Natasha’s. Whatever was bothering the spy, he must have known about it, too. “I’m fine now, I promise.”

“Are you sure?” Natasha pressed. “Because your brother said your powers weren’t acting right. What did he mean by that?”

“I—it’s, um…” Wanda faltered, every thought suddenly escaping her except for her thoughts of what had caused the abnormality in her powers. The baby she still had to explain to them—_the baby—_

She was suddenly hyper-aware of James beside her. He pressed closer to her side, flesh hand hovering close to hers, though unusually hesitant to actually make contact. “They know why, sweetheart,” he whispered, as if he heard her thoughts.

Before Wanda could even contemplate how she felt about that, Natasha informed her, “Tony knows, too. Only because we thought it would affect our search. But how has it been affecting your abilities?”

“I…it’s…it’s hard to tell,” Wanda admitted honestly. “I didn’t even notice something was wrong until it was pointed out to me. I wasn’t even really using them for anything until yesterday, so I don’t know how long they’ve been acting abnormally. And all of yesterday, they only reacted if I pushed for them to. Usually, they’re more sensitive than that.”

“And the park?” Natasha pressed. “Where the bridge was burnt?”

Wanda only vaguely remembered the bridge she was referring to. The one where the agent she and Luna had been chasing tried to hide. “I don’t remember what happened there. I was just chasing someone—someone I thought had a hand in hurting Pietro—and then everything got so _hot,_ that I just…I don’t know, I guess I must have fainted.”

She could hear several clicks of guilt at the surface of James’s mind, prompting her to take initiative and finally lace their fingers together. The plates in his other hand audibly shifted, the way they did before he received an updated prosthetic, which only furthered her suspicion that something had happened to it. Something had happened to _him._

“Well, with any luck, we can avoid something else like that happening,” Natasha declared, resuming her uncharacteristically anxious glances all around. With a distracted wave of her hand, she added, “C’mon. Sam’s waiting for us.”

Steve followed her as the spy started to make her way around the staircase, presumably heading for the front doors. James, however, wandered back towards the window, where he’d left his gun on the floor. Wanda went with him, mostly because she didn’t want to let go of him just yet.

“You flew with Sam again?” she asked lightly, hoping to ease some of the disquiet she could still feel emanating off of him. “Did you two behave for each other?”

That succeeded in drawing a small smile out of him. “Yeah…for the most part.”

Wanda grinned, glad to hear him teasing too. Although, he didn’t spare much more time for it, gently pulling his arm from her hold to pick up his abandoned gun. Wanda left him to it, feeling some of the apprehension from the others start to creep up within herself. She wondered if any of that was from James. She knew he had some history in the Red Room, too, though she didn’t know for how long, or exactly what it had entailed. Which meant she didn’t know if he’d ever been to this site, in particular before. Even if he had, there was some question as to how well he would remember it, given what else Hydra had put him through. Wanda shuddered at the thought, even now.

Her eyes landed on the window before them, as if something in the neglected landscape surrounding them could possibly distract her from thoughts of her soldier’s past suffering. Of a past that potentially lurked within parts of this building.

To her surprise, there _was_ something outside. Another puff of dust, like when her teammates’ truck pulled up. This time bigger. This time noisier as it rolled up. Noisier, like the sound of not just one engine, but two. Three. _Four._

Whatever Natasha had wanted them to avoid…they were too late.

James had his back to the window, maneuvering his gun into the holster on the back of his uniform. Just as it had slipped into place, she touched his flesh arm, instantly getting his attention.

“James…” was all she managed.

He followed her gaze, his posture going stiff and the surface of his mind quieting to a repressed thrum within a single second. “Shit,” he growled. Then, louder, “Nat!”

The call echoed off the otherwise empty walls of the building, leaving no doubt that she or Steve heard him (even less so when considering Steve’s enhanced senses). In the time it took them to respond, Wanda noticed James stretching his arm out, subtly ushering her away from the window. Before she could remind him that she still had access to her powers—that she could still ward off any threats, too—Steve and Natasha returned, instantly crowding behind him.

“Shit!” Natasha cursed. She looked around them once more, the surface of her mind ticking rapidly with what were definitely alternate escape routes from the building. It made Wanda even more unsettled than she already was, knowing it wasn’t like Natasha to be so quick to choose flight over fight.

“Come on,” she said eventually, grabbing each of her teammates’ arms and gently pushing them ahead of her in the direction of the main ballroom. “Through the kitchen. There’s a tunnel from there that leads to a shed further up the road. Go through the little door in the pantry.”

“Wait, wait.” Steve ushered both Wanda and James in front of him, although they both stopped at the same time he did as he reached back for Natasha, who wasn’t moving from her place near the window. “What about—?”

“It’ll be fine,” Natasha insisted. “I’m just going to thin out their ranks, and give us all more cover to escape. Now, go!”

Evidently, this plan hadn’t been disclosed with Steve. He shook his head, the surface of his thoughts buzzing wildly in turmoil. “But what if you—”

“Go! Now!” Natasha ordered, more firmly this time. More desperate. At the same time, she reached for a gun in the holster at her left thigh, carrying it with her as she inched her way into the opposite direction.

Wanda realized the cause of her friend’s sudden heightened sense of urgency: the engines outside had stopped. Whoever was coming was almost upon them.

James was the one to finally incite Steve and Wanda to obey the spy’s orders. He took Wanda’s hand in his flesh one, and with his other, grabbed the bend of Steve’s arm. He all but dragged them along the rest of the way through the main hall of the academy, guiding them with a suspicious amount of confidence in his direction.

Eventually, James brought them to a smaller hall on the other side of the ballroom, which led to a swinging door. Past that was a large, almost completely vacated kitchen. Only a few porcelain plates and glassware remained, scattered haphazardly along the counters and in cupboards running along the two walls adjacent to the door. On the opposite wall was an arched window that displayed the trucks that had come for them, parked around the team’s truck like wolves circling around a potential kill. A barrier around their main means of getting away from here.

James led Wanda to a door on the other side of the room, this time with Steve following on his own accord. The Captain even wrenched open the door, revealing a pantry that was surprisingly still stocked with cans and boxes of food (though it had all undoubtedly gone bad by now). Steve felt all along the walls beneath the shelves until he felt a loose panel on the right-hand side. The door merely shifted at first, its neglected hinges refusing to fully open until Steve gave it a more forceful push.

“There we go,” Steve said on a relieved breath, presumably from how easy the hidden door had been to find. “OK, now you two—”

“No,” James said suddenly, surprising Steve and Wanda both. “I’ll go back for her. You get Wanda to Sam.”

“What?” Steve and Wanda exclaimed in unison.

Steve stepped forward with his hand outstretched, as if prepared to forcefully pull James into the pantry with him. “Buck, I can’t ask you to—”

“You don’t need to,” James argued, backing away from Steve. In the process, his hand slipped from Wanda’s hold. “I know the layout of the building. If it’s needed, I know other ways to get out and around them. If you want someone to cover Nat, it should be me.”

He spoke with such unwavering, almost robotic reasoning, that it was difficult to argue with him. Though that didn’t stop Wanda from trying. “If you concede Natasha needs the help, then we shouldn’t separate at all. We can still—”

“No, doll, please.” His stony expression instantly softened, and he took both of her hands in his. “Please. I need to know you’re—”

“I can still use my scarlet,” she flashed back. “And I was trained to fight even with—”

“Can you promise what happened in the park won’t happen again?”

Wanda felt her breath catch in her throat, effectively quashing the rest of her argument. That wasn’t fair. That _wasn’t fair._

But he was right. She wasn’t helpless by any means—and she felt she’d proven that fairly well by getting this far from her would-be captors the first time—but she _was _still out of touch with her scarlet. Even if she tried to fight without them, there was no guarantee her powers wouldn’t jump to their host’s defense on their own accord. If they got overheated and made her drop mid-fight again, it would only complicate her teammates’ escape.

Reluctantly, she admitted, “I…I don’t know.”

There was a second of hesitation from all three of them—a second they likely couldn’t afford while unknown enemies were closing in around them—and then James was pulling her closer. The next thing she knew, he had dipped his head down to kiss her forehead. Then he was pulling away just as she processed what was happening.

“Go,” he ordered softly, speaking to both her and Steve. “It’s OK. We won’t be far behind you.”

Wanda could hear at the surface of his mind that the Captain was just as uncertain of splitting up as she was. However, it wasn’t enough to stop him from pulling her into the pantry with him.

At the same time, James reached for the door. In the split second before he closed it on her, Wanda saw that small expression of tenderness he’d had with her completely dissolve, leaving just the image of the Winter Soldier before her. The indomitable assassin that she now knew for certain had previously been a part of this academy’s sordid past. And then he was gone.

* * *

The others left just in time. As soon as they left her sight, Natasha heard pounding on the door. When she, Steve, and Barnes first arrived, they’d had the foresight to barricade the door with whatever furniture could be found nearby. Luckily, there was still some pretty large chairs in the old lounge area where her handlers would have their “business meetings.” Their weight was able to hold off the incoming persons long enough for Natasha to scramble back towards the grand staircase.

She perched herself right at one of the middle steps, aiming her handgun between the spiral balusters of the railing. They weren’t nearly thick enough to provide good cover, but it was at least a good position to grant her full view of whoever came through, while also being low enough that she could make a quick getaway in another direction if there were too many to take on at once.

However, once the doors were forced open with a boisterous _clack_, the sound was followed by significantly softer clicks when they were brought back closed. Then there was a scrape of shoes against the floorboards, though it didn’t sound like they could have belonged to more than one person. And from the way the floorboards creaked, it was either someone who didn’t know the layout of the building well enough to avoid the older boards, or it was someone who simply didn’t care about concealing their arrival.

As soon as the newcomer spoke, Natasha knew the latter was the case.

“I know you’re out there.”

Natasha didn’t react. She merely pressed herself closer against the stair railing, keeping her gun aimed at the ready as a figure crept into view. _Yelena._

Despite her declaration that she knew Natasha was there, Yelena’s gaze remained fixed on the space immediately around her. She had a handgun of her own held up and ready, her unwavering stance nearly identical to Natasha’s own. Although, what struck Natasha was the other spy’s appearance. Her thick mane of yellow hair, which Natasha always remembered as being well-kept and pulled out of her face, was now draped freely—wildly—down her back. And from the way she was donning a simple beige bomber jacket and black slacks, she resembled a disheveled civilian more than she did the immaculate assassin that had once tried constantly to prove herself as the utmost perfect student of the Red Room.

“Didn’t I say you had a new favorite?” Yelena egged on. “You came running as soon as I mentioned her. Waiting for you was like waiting for a dog to respond to a whistle.”

Natasha didn’t dare rise to the bait. She held her ground, remaining stone-still as she waited for the inevitable moment when Yelena thought to look up.

“You’ll have to tell me what made you bring your newest little game here.” Yelena crossed directly in front of her, and was now stalking past the staircase altogether. “You had to know it would find its way back to me from here.”

All of a sudden, Yelena whirled on her heel, gun held up and steady as she brought it to aim right at Natasha’s chest, as if she’d known Natasha was hiding there all along. Natasha was just as fast, bringing her own gun up to point at Yelena in return.

“A game?” Natasha said, at last. “Is that what you think this is?”

“I certainly hope not,” Yelena replied evenly, subtly creeping closer to the stairs. “You know how I never much cared for them. How I always hated to lose.”

Yelena lurked even closer, one foot planted against the first stair step.

Natasha, in return, didn’t budge an inch. “I wouldn’t know anything about how that feels. You’ll have to tell me about it, _sis._”

Her mocking use of the nickname finally broke Yelena’s resolve. The other spy snapped, lunging forward within the blink of an eye. Although, rather than opening fire at Natasha, she merely reached for Natasha’s own gun. Natasha took scarcely a second to process the firearm being taken from her grip before she was lunging forward, too, barreling into Yelena and seizing her gun as they both tumbled down the lower half of the stairs. The several blows to their bodies made both Natasha and her opponent lose hold of the other’s weapon, the two guns clattering to the ground between them as they fell to the floor.

Natasha was quick to leap back onto her feet. So was Yelena. The other spy’s movements mirrored Natasha’s nearly beat for beat as they kicked each other’s wrist when they reached for one of the fallen firearms. They both stumbled backwards. This time, Yelena was just a split second quicker to regain her balance, whipping out a knife from some hidden place behind her. The blade glinted fiercely as it swung towards Natasha, and she was barely able to side-step in time to avoid getting slashed.

She retreated further as Yelena kept charging at her, her blade waving madly in several more near-hits along Natasha’s face and chest. Natasha merely swerved around or blocked every attack, waiting for Yelena to get frustrated and sloppy before even considering a counter-attack of her own. Had this been a few years ago, maybe she would have been quicker to assume the offense. To properly fight back, and remind Yelena why she had been the one their handlers favored more. But now, Natasha didn’t care at all about asserting dominance. She only cared about getting back to her teammates, and making sure they made it to the quinjet to get home safely.

Eventually, Yelena’s lightning-quick movements became too much for even herself to keep up with. She staggered forward with her next step, turning her trip onto the floor into a full-body roll, putting her in an ideal position to sweep Natasha’s legs out from under her.

Natasha couldn’t stop herself from falling backwards, though made it a point as she did to kick up into Yelena’s chest. That managed to knock Yelena back long enough to give Natasha just enough time to roll over and grab Yelena by her great mane of hair. She rolled again, pulling the other spy towards her on the floor and once again thrust her foot into Yelena’s midriff. This time, the strength of her kick hauled Yelena clear over her head. Yelena slammed into the newel post of the stair rail behind them, the pained grunt that escaped her giving away how strong the impact was against her back.

Natasha took advantage of the additional time it took Yelena to get up after a blow like that. She swayed backwards, then leapt up back onto her feet. Simultaneously, Yelena was quite literally pulling herself onto her feet as well, holding onto the newel post she had just been thrown against for support. Just when Yelena gained the wherewithal to lunge towards Natasha again, Natasha managed to flick her wrist, unveiling one of the stun batons stored in the sleeve of her suit.

Yelena stopped. It was a tiny thing, lasting no more than a few seconds, but it was certainly noticeable after the furious speed of their scrap thus far. Natasha noticed in that brief, fleeting moment of hesitation that Yelena’s eyes went to the baton in her hand, widening ever so slightly as it crackled with electricity.

But then the moment was gone as soon as it had come, instantly leaving Natasha’s mind as she watched the other spy suddenly lurch back and sideways, onto the first stair step. Yelena leapt from the wooden panel with her knife still raised high, only to drop it into her other hand while in mid-air to swing at Natasha’s lower stomach as opposed to the higher attack Natasha had been expecting. The split-second of surprise was costly, allowing Yelena’s blade to slice through Natasha’s suit and nick the space just right of her navel, sending a few droplets of blood flying. It was only a shallow cut, but as Natasha proceeded to fight as though it wasn’t there, it continued to send sharper and sharper pangs of pain through her side.

That flash of red was like a beacon to Yelena. She honed in on the freshly-made cut, swinging her knife towards it and even attempting to land a roundhouse kick against her opponent’s now injured side. Natasha narrowly dodged every advance, trying in vain to land a blow of her own with her stun baton. They were like mirrors of each other, equally fast and vicious, but unable to actually reach each other. That is, until Natasha felt herself literally backed into a wall.

She hit it with a grunt, then another as Yelena brought her knee up and slammed it into Natasha’s hip, pinning her against the wall with enough force to dent the surface behind her. With one hand, Yelena seized her wrist, twisting it to an unnatural degree until Natasha couldn’t help but drop her baton. With her other hand, Yelena raised her knife again, pressing the tip of the blade right at Natasha’s throat.

For a long second, Yelena just held her there. Then, with a sneer, she leaned closer to taunt in Natasha’s face, “You were great once. But now? _You’re_ the disappointment.”

Natasha snarled, trying to shove Yelena back. But with her body pinned by the injured side, which was now sending a sharp spike of agony through her, she only managed to dislodge herself for a fleeting second before her opponent slammed her back into the wall again, this time with both her knee at Natasha’s injured side and her arm pressed against her throat. With her other arm, Yelena raised her blade as if to pierce through Natasha’s side again. Natasha bucked against her, legitimately uncertain if Yelena would be willing to kill her given their history together.

Ultimately, she didn’t get a chance to find out. A familiar click from somewhere behind her made Yelena freeze in place. It was the click of a gun being cocked. Slowly, she turned to look over her shoulder, unwittingly granting Natasha a view at who had come for them.

Barnes was there. He had a rifle poised at the ready as he stalked towards them from the other side of the main hall. He practically growled at Yelena, the space between them doing nothing to diminish the ferocity in his command, “Get off of her.”

Yelena compliantly stepped back. Although, it was clear to see that it wasn’t to directly oblige Barnes. Rather, she seemed almost in a daze of disbelief as she half-turned towards him, her gaze never once leaving his form, even to blink of an eye. For a split second, Natasha wondered if she was somehow able to piece together that Barnes had been hiding amongst Natasha’s new teammates all this time. Then she questioned if Yelena even recognized him from so long ago, as one of the other assassins that had been brought in to help train them for a brief period of time.

But then she uttered a growl of her own. “_Soldat._”

Barnes didn’t react to his old title. He stood his ground, as relentlessly still as stone. His gun remained up, directed right at Yelena’s chest as she turned to fully face him. She moved stiffly and slowly, like a predatory animal trying to pass by a challenger, waiting for the other to strike first. _Daring_ Barnes to follow through on his unspoken threat to shoot her.

He didn’t. Natasha didn’t know whether to be relieved the situation wasn’t escalated, or to be frustrated, knowing that Yelena would take advantage of any quality she viewed as a weakness. Natasha knew that included compassion and mercy, for she had originally been trained to have the same disposition.

Before she knew it, Natasha felt a pull at her hair, and then another at the side of her suit opposite her cut. Yelena positively _threw_ her towards Barnes, letting Natasha’s body slam against the floor between them with more force than Natasha thought possible from the average person.

“Go on. Take her,” Yelena challenged sourly. “Not like you succeeded the first time.”

_What?_ Natasha thought dazedly as she forced herself to her feet, angling herself away from Barnes to hopefully disguise her having any alliance with him.

“She knows no loyalty,” Yelena spat. “She unleashed SHIELD’s secrets for the entire world to see. She left us after your one night with her. It’s only a matter of time before she deserts her new band of holier-than-thou freaks. Maybe then, you can remake her into someone Petrovitch would be proud of. Someone worth abandoning _everything_ he worked for, even though _we_ were right there.”

“Wait a minute,” Natasha cut in with a wave of her hand. Then, she gestured to Barnes. “Wait, you think I left here because of _him?_”

Yelena didn’t answer. “Let’s see if the traitor is still worthy of her title,” she said instead, reaching into the pocket of her vest. She pulled out some sort of small, cylindrical device and held it above her head for the others to see.

Natasha’s shoulders went rigid at the sight. _Detonator._

Panic swept over Natasha. She knew better than to show it, but it didn’t stop her from making a last-ditch attempt to reason with the other spy. “If you want the mantle so badly, you’ll have to win it from me, yourself, Belova! One-on-one. No fancy tools, or—”

Yelena still wasn’t listening. Without a word, she merely held her rival’s gaze with a callous glare, and she clicked the detonator on. There was only a fleeting second where she betrayed emotion, in the form of a self-satisfied smirk upon seeing Natasha flinch in anticipation for a blow that didn’t come.

Natasha didn’t care if the impassive mask she was supposed to have as Black Widow was stripped away. Not in those long, torturous heartbeats where nothing but silence followed. Her first thought was simply that the cued explosion was too far away to be heard. Perhaps somewhere on the other side of the property—the side where she’d sent _Steve and Wanda—_

But no. The detonation had merely been delayed. It went off no more than a minute later, bursting some feet behind them. Not close enough to actually strike them, but still too close for comfort. Even Barnes, whose own collected front hadn’t wavered once since he arrived, ducked his head and scrambled away as pieces of the main ballroom shattered, showering them all with pieces of wood, plaster, and mirror shards.

Natasha couldn’t process how she felt about the ballroom—the root of her memories of this place, where she had learned to dance, and to fight, and to kill without remorse (a part of her, as cruel as such memories were)—being so suddenly gone. She wasn’t given any time for it, between the freshly-made opening in the wall rapidly filling with people, most (if not all) armed and opening fire at her and Barnes, and Yelena charging at her once again.

With the addition of dust from the destroyed wall of the aged building seeping into her nose and mouth, Natasha found herself in a rare instance of feeling overwhelmed. The moment was costly, allowing Yelena to overpower her in an instant, barreling into her and knocking her back onto the ground. This time, there was no chance of receiving help from Barnes, for he was returning fire at the figures that had come piling in.

Yelena straddled her rival, slowly bringing her weight down to sit on her. Particularly around her midriff, where Natasha had been slashed by her knife. She unveiled said blade once again, bringing its edge to hover ominously close over Natasha’s left eye.

“I do intend to take the Black Widow from you,” she declared lowly, as if the chaotic noise of the brawl that had broken out mere feet from them wasn’t there. “Exactly the way Petrovitch would’ve wanted. And I’m not going to risk any of those mutants you’ve managed to put under your thumb interrupting it.”

Natasha seethed. Though, she held herself back from struggling against Yelena’s weight. Not with that blade so close to her face. That had always been her strongest advantage over Yelena in the past: she had a greater capacity for patience.

Abruptly, Yelena brought the knife away from her opponent’s face, and drove it into the floorboard right beside Natasha’s ear. “Come on, Natalia. Like old times,” she declared, rising up and off from Natasha. “One-on-one.”

Natasha was slower to get back on her feet. She even grunted a little as the cut that was still dribbling blood at her middle protested the way she stretched her torso in order to stand tall, to appear more confident than she truly felt at the moment. She knew her mind would stay partially preoccupied with her teammates, scattered as they were between the quinjet, the escape tunnel Natasha had directed them towards, and now also a gunfight against at least a dozen of (who Natasha presumed to be) the lackeys Yelena had mentioned being on her payroll during her phone call to Nat the night before. She wouldn’t be able to truly fight the way she used to with her thoughts constantly racing back to each of them.

But there was no other choice. Yelena was obviously not going to let her go without this fight. She was already coming at her once again, expelling a flurry of swift, carefully coordinated attacks that Natasha clumsily blocked, ducked, and countered with blows of her own. Internally, she pushed herself to slip back into the rhythm of fighting the way she always had in her memories of this very place. Back where nothing and no one truly mattered to her. Where all that mattered was proving herself as the strongest over her opponent, no matter who they were. And no matter _how_ she had to do it.

Within heartbeats, she was back in that ruthless mindset. She steadily began delivering more attacks of her own, on the offensive just as much as she was on the defense. She kicked at Yelena’s midriff, seizing a fistful of yellow hair and using it to haul her backwards, shoving Yelena against the nearest wall not unlike what she had done to Natasha moments before. However, before she could effectively pin her there, Yelena forcefully brought her knee up into Natasha’s ribs. Perhaps if Natasha hadn’t been slashed there beforehand, it wouldn’t have affected her as much. But as it was, she drew back ever so slightly to wince in pain, and that was enough to allow Yelena to raise her leg again and kick Natasha back, ramming the heel of her boot into Nat’s lower stomach.

As Natasha reeled back from the force of the kick, Yelena darted forward, driving her fist into Natasha’s jaw. Natasha tasted blood, losing her focus for a split second, then returned to herself just in time to bat away Yelena’s next punch.

Just when Natasha fell back into the rhythm of sparring, and was able to start driving Yelena backwards through the hall, she noticed Yelena’s own patterns starting to get sloppy. Her blows weren’t as calculated. They were raw, driven by her emotions. By fury that even with nothing left of the Red Room and the handlers that oversaw it, Natasha _still_ wouldn’t let her win.

And Natasha wasn’t going to. Not after Yelena threatened her teammates.

One misplaced step had them rolling together on the floor again. This time Natasha was the one to ram her boot into Yelena’s middle, flinging her off of her body and knocking her into the wall. As they both scrambled back onto their feet, Natasha noticed Yelena reach out and grab onto something for support. It was the end of a fireplace mantel. Their fight had carried them halfway down the hall and into what had formerly been the lounge area on the other side of the main staircase. After its furniture had been cleared out to barricade the door, she’d hardly recognized the room.

_Barnes,_ was her first thought. Whether intentionally or not, Yelena had succeeded in luring her away from the last of her teammates. And while he had gotten caught up in a fight against a wave of nameless brutes, no less.

She couldn’t continue this. She had to get back to them.

Natasha took a small step back, readying herself to run back into the main hall and at least offer some help to Barnes. However, she kept her eyes on Yelena as she proceeded to shuffle backwards, knowing Yelena would pounce on her the second she turned her back. Especially given the other spy’s current state of frenzied rage. Her teeth were bared like a rabid animal, eyes gleaming with a violent desperation to rip into her opponent. To _win._

Despite being several feet apart, Natasha braced herself when Yelena lunged forward again. However, before Yelena could manage even a step towards her, something yanked her back. She practically roared in frustration, cursing in Russian as one of her hands clawed at the other as it became pinned to something behind her. The decorative, wrought-iron fireplace screen that guarded the mouth of the fireplace now had some of its swirling pieces detached from the rest of the unit, reaching out and enveloping Yelena’s wrist like the vines from a plant. Yelena thrashed violently as they effectively tethered her to the fireplace, twisting under invisible hands. Shimmering under the touch of thin, tiny strands of…

_Scarlet._

Natasha whirled around. Sure enough, where the wall of the main hall stopped to form the doorless entryway to the den, Wanda was standing there, hands half-raised and trembling as more strands of reddish light coiled around her fingers. The strands of red promptly evaporated as she lowered her hands, apparently satisfied with Yelena’s makeshift restraints. A breath later, Steve appeared behind her, his shield raised to cover both of their heads, and his gaze flitting back and forth between her and the space behind them, where they must have passed by the mob fight to get to her.

Natasha immediately strode over to them, making sure Yelena stayed in her peripheral. “What the hell are you doing here? I told you—”

“We heard the explosion,” Steve interrupted. “We couldn’t just…I thought—”

She knew what he thought. She’d assumed the same thing when Yelena first activated the explosive.

Steve never finished his explanation, for his words were drowned out by another animalistic cry. Yelena cursed in Russian some more, hair falling in a disheveled mess over half of her face as she continued to thrash against her iron leash, just shy of breaking her wrist. Natasha wondered now if her intensified rage was a result of her noticing Steve and Wanda’s arrival. Whether because she knew they would interrupt the spies’ one-on-one brawl, or simply because Yelena viewed them as part of the team that stole Natasha away from the Red Room (or hell, maybe both reasons ran true), Natasha didn’t want to know. All she wanted was to get away from here. She knew Steve was itching to, as well. In fact, that had been obvious ever since they set foot here. After she had told him the role this building had played in her upbringing—and the role _Yelena_ had played as both a rival and a sister-figure—and how much she had been dreading to see any of it again, he’d only shared her pain while they were there.

“Where’s James?” Wanda demanded, her eyes still fixed on Yelena.

“Fighting the goons in the entry hall,” Natasha answered quickly, grabbing the bend of Wanda’s arm and urging her backwards.

“Shit, we must have missed him,” Steve muttered in frustration with himself.

“There were so many of them, I must’ve…I couldn’t hear him,” Wanda added ruefully. _Weakly._ Perhaps it was paranoia, but Natasha thought she could see her teammate swaying on her feet. Natasha didn’t know how much more stress it would take to make Wanda faint like she had in Central Park, but she did know they couldn’t afford to have that happen again now. Which is why she and Steve should have _run _like Natasha had told them_—_

“Doesn’t matter now,” she said, interrupting her own train of thought. “We’ll grab him on our way back through there. Let’s just—”

She was interrupted again, this time by a loud groaning. The stubborn protests of metal as it bent.

_No…no, that’s not possible._

Natasha turned back to face Yelena. The other woman had momentarily ceased her struggling against the fireplace screen in order to get better leverage against it, bracing her foot against its bottom edge to keep it in place, and resting her free hand against the other, just below where it was tethered. With gritted teeth, she strained to wrench the second hand free. It seemed difficult, but within moments, the iron did finally bend from Yelena’s pulling. It bent like it was merely crafting wire, like it was _nothing_. Like…

Like Yelena was enhanced.

“Go,” Natasha ordered softly. Then, as the realization sank in more, she repeated herself with a less-than-gentle shove to both of her teammates. “Go!”

Her teammates obliged. Steve took Wanda’s hand and ran, still holding his shield up in front of them as they went. Natasha was right behind them, picking up Yelena’s knife from where it was embedded in the floorboards when they passed it. Not long after, one of Yelena’s hired goons jumped right in their path. Steve easily knocked him aside before he could even swing at them with his own knife, but several more instantly followed him. Steve knocked them aside with his shield as well, punching a few that didn’t go down immediately.

As they drew nearer to the destroyed ballroom, they encountered a few adversaries that were more tactical, attempting to attack from behind. Natasha kicked, and punched, and slashed at them with Yelena’s knife. She didn’t bother trying to fully incapacitate them, but rather focused on simply getting them off their trail as the three Avengers tore their way through the pool of violent strangers.

Said strangers were too unorganized to be agents of a set organization. If they were under the payroll of a rogue, baseless spy like Yelena, then it was safe to assume they were merely mobsters or other breeds of criminals Yelena had randomly assembled. That lack of training, or any form of organization, worked in the Avengers’ favor, allowing them to push through them fairly easily. Even Wanda seemed able to use her powers against them without any concern, practically swatting bodies aside with her scarlet like they were flies, even from several feet away. The entire time, her eyes were rapidly sweeping over the room, clearly looking for Barnes among them.

Once the three Avengers were right at the heart of what had once been the ballroom, Steve stopped to do the same. “Bucky!” he called. “Buck!”

As he and Wanda looked around for him, Natasha threw herself between them and another attacker. She embedded Yelena’s knife in the person’s shoulder and kicked his chest, effectively dropping him. Just as he went down, another was lunging forward in his place with a loud cry.

It was Yelena. Iron vines were still coiled around her wrist, with one jutting out at a precarious length over the back of her hand, its end jagged from where it had been torn from the rest of the screen. And she had it reeled back to thrust right into Wanda’s back.

_No!_

Natasha moved without thinking. She pushed Wanda into Steve, the suddenness of it nearly knocking them both down, and barreled into Yelena’s side.

Yelena stumbled, then tried to swing at Natasha with the jagged end of the iron at her wrist. Natasha ducked in the nick of time, then charged into the other spy once again, this time effectively knocking her over and pinning her down against a nearby end table. Although, that only gave the wildly writhing Yelena a better vantage point to slash at Nat with the iron vine. It scratched Nat once on the side of her upper arm, making her wince, and then again on the other side of the same arm, making her grip against Yelena’s throat slacken.

The moment of weakness was costly. Yelena kicked her off, and then was whirling around to sweep her legs out from under her. Natasha went down, and Yelena was on her within a second. She straddled Natasha, her jagged piece of iron poised to pierce through Natasha’s heart.

Her eyes were even wilder than before with violence, with an all-consuming resentment. It may not have even had to do with earning the Black Widow mantle anymore. This was not the same Yelena she had left behind years ago. As she wrapped one hand around Natasha’s throat, and swung down with the other, the tangled iron around it appearing almost ravenous to sink its jagged end into her chest, she knew without a doubt now that Yelena would do it—that she was _going to_ do it. She was going to kill her—_murder_ her right in front of her teammates.

However, the iron vine never struck. Natasha couldn’t help but gasp as it came down, only to be stopped mere inches from her heart. There was nothing between her and the jagged end except for a single hand. A hand made of metal, the material grinding against the iron vine with an abhorrent screech as it became impaled instead.

Barnes grunted as the jagged iron pierced through his hand. His lower lip was split, and some of the blood from it dripped down onto Natasha’s cheek. Yelena snarled, making several more attempts to plunge the iron down into Natasha, but Barnes kept her from it. He was shaking, either from pain or from effort to overpower Yelena (now that Natasha suspected she was enhanced as well). Ultimately, though, he was able to drag her off of Natasha altogether.

Once the other spy was no longer over Natasha, Barnes shoved her back with his flesh hand. Yelena reeled right back at him, swinging the iron vine at his chest. He deflected the jagged end with his metal arm, which left him open to other strikes from her. She delivered them in rapid succession, one right after the other. First with her knee into his abdomen, then her free hand’s fist into his throat, which then made him hunch over and bring him closer for her knee to drive up into his chest.

Natasha couldn’t do anything as Yelena drove Barnes further back. She was still dazed from her own panic at how closely she had come to being impaled to death. She simply rolled onto her stomach and uselessly watched as Yelena quite literally forced Barnes into a corner, her free hand wrapping around his throat. This time, there was no one around to interfere as she reeled her other, iron-clad hand back to strike. She thrust the jagged end up into his side, dangerously close to his ribs.

If that wasn’t alarming enough to drive Natasha out of her daze, the sharp gasp of pain that echoed Barnes’s own was. Natasha’s eyes followed the sound to the other side of the room, where Wanda had been covering Steve’s back against the last few standing mobsters. The witch abruptly froze where she stood, and her hands flew to her side. From what Natasha could see, no sort of wound or abrasion was there. But she did notice it was the exact same place where Barnes had just been stabbed.

Natasha was quick to shed her stupor as a flurry of pieces rapidly slotted together in her mind.

Wanda’s powers allowed her to hear—and _feel_—minds around her. She had seen the witch use them to absorb her brother’s pain during various sparring sessions. And she had fainted after using them right after Pietro was shot.

_Shit._

Using her powers while feeling her loved one’s pain had been what caused Wanda to overheat before. And now she was feeling it from Barnes.

“Shit!” Natasha growled, scrambling clumsily to her feet. She didn’t even bother with a plan. All she could think of was stopping Wanda from getting overwhelmed from her own powers again. And to do that, she knew she had to get Yelena off of Barnes. She raced across the ballroom in just a few long strides, uncapping the second stun baton in her suit as she did.

At the same time, Yelena roughly yanked her metal vine out of Barnes’s side, only to draw back her hand for a second stabbing. Natasha barely reached them in time, grasping Yelena’s hair with one hand, yanking her head back, and using the other hand to jab her stun baton into her abdomen.

Electricity immediately combed over Yelena’s body. Natasha heard the faintest gasp escape the other woman’s lips before she began seizing. Natasha shoved her aside, letting her collapse onto the floor beside them.

Disturbingly enough, when Natasha retracted her baton, Yelena’s body continued to convulse. The other woman gasped for air, clawing senselessly at her throat and chest even though the baton was no longer there. Her face was contorted with pain, as to be expected with electrocution, but also from surprise and…and _fear_.

Natasha watched the other spy in stunned silence. The spy that had been her sister as much as her rival writhing in pain—and quite possibly a panic attack, too…

_No. She’s not the same Yelena as before. _This person was more wrathful. She was _stronger,_ enhanced somehow even though the Red Room had chosen Natasha to be their Black Widow.

Regretfully, she forced herself to turn away from Yelena. She went to Barnes instead, kneeling beside him where he had fallen onto the floor in the corner of the room. He was breathing heavily, clearly fighting against the throes of shock as his flesh hand pressed against the bloody gash in his side, though without administering the pressure it needed. His eyes were blown wide, and were darting all over the room, not quite focusing like she needed him to.

She grasped his face between her hands. “Barnes. Barnes!”

He didn’t respond, gasping for breath.

“Barnes…_Bucky,_” she urged desperately, as if the simple use of another one of his names was enough to bring him back to her.

Strangely enough, it was. Within his next few labored breaths, his gaze became more grounded, first fixing on her, and then briefly darting to Yelena beside them (who had thankfully calmed to simply laying in a defensive ball, panting for breath). After a few more pants, he managed to speak. “You…you couldn’t have done that earlier?”

Natasha sighed, half-relieved and half-exasperated by the comment. “Come on,” she ordered gently as she tucked an arm under his flesh arm—the side of his body where he’d been stabbed—and helped him up. He was still breathing raggedly and barely pressing his metal hand to his wound, but he did manage to follow along with her across the ballroom well enough without weighing her down with his weight too much.

Thankfully, Natasha only had to haul Barnes halfway across the ballroom before Steve and Wanda reached them, having apparently incapacitated (or at least, scared off) the rest of Yelena’s hired goons. Natasha’s sense of urgency to get off the academy premises ceased for a moment as the four teammates surveyed each other’s state.

Wanda instantly pressed herself into Barnes’s other side, taking in the sight of his deep gash for all of five seconds before tugging on his vest to let him lean on her instead. She pressed her hand over the wound, small strands of scarlet light swirling around each of her fingers. Barnes winced, but the psionic energy seemed to be doing something to stem the flow of blood that had been trickling down from the injury so far.

Natasha kept a close eye on Wanda as she used her powers. She was breathing shortly, not unlike Barnes, although it didn’t seem as if such a small use of her powers was enough to faze her. Not at the moment, at least. Meanwhile, she could feel Steve’s hand on the small of her back.

“Jesus,” he breathed at the sight of Barnes’s wound. “Nat, are you hurt?”

She was. She could still feel her cut from Yelena’s knife flaring from pain, as well as a couple of other cuts along her arm and several bruises from the various kicks and punches she’d taken (again, mostly from Yelena). However, her adrenaline from the overall situation was numbing her to most of them, and she knew simply getting out of there was more important.

“I’m fine,” she insisted for the time being. “We just need to go.”

With a nod at Yelena, still turned away on the floor, she added, “We don’t know what else she’s got with her. And if you thought she was pissed off before, she’s gonna be even more so when she gets up after that.”

“Yeah, I’ll take your word on that,” Steve returned, his gaze going back to Barnes’s wounded side. He then ducked down to hook his friend’s flesh arm around his shoulders and take the other super-soldier’s weight from Wanda. The young witch uttered a fretful whimper as she lost physical contact with Barnes. The knot of scarlet she had conjured over his wound dissolved into nothingness without her close proximity to it.

“Come on,” Natasha urged, gesturing for them to follow her as she began to leave, knowing that the sooner they did, the sooner they could give Barnes’s wound the proper attention it needed. She broke into a light run when she felt Wanda’s hand slip into her own, indicating that she was following.

As they reached the opposite end of the ballroom, Natasha chanced a look over her shoulder to ensure Steve was able to keep up with them when Barnes was hanging off of him. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be much of a hindrance for him, even though Barnes looked less and less able to stay upright, even with Steve supporting him. But they managed to stay just a few hobbled steps behind.

At that rate, Natasha led the way through the halls of the building, towards the kitchen. She made a beeline for the pantry, slamming the doors open and then the trap door in the right wall immediately after. There was a short drop into the tunnel on the other side, which Natasha ushered Wanda to go through first. The fact that Wanda knew to jump hinted that she and Steve had at least made it into the passageway and were safely underground when Yelena set off her explosive.

Natasha hopped through next, then turned to see Steve carefully pushing Barnes after her. She and Wanda helped him down, each of them taking one of his hands to brace himself as he essentially slid through the entryway. Steve was quick to follow suit, his broad shoulders barely able to fit between the walls, much less with his shield strapped to his right arm.

Once he was inside, he took over supporting Barnes again, allowing Natasha to resume her duty of leading their way. There was no lighting in the tunnel, but she knew it was a straightforward path to the other end. However, the darkness did make the journey feel longer than it probably was.

Out of nowhere, Steve eventually said, “Nat.”

She stopped, feeling Wanda walk into her as she did. Before she could question what was wrong, she heard it.

The beating rotors of an aircraft. It was muffled, given where they were, but Natasha had flown too often to mistake the sound for anything else.

“Damn,” she muttered under her breath. Turning in the general direction of where Steve was, she pressed urgently, “Can you tell what side of the property it’s headed for?”

There was a beat of silence as he tried to listen. “No, I can’t,” he reluctantly admitted.

Natasha had half-expected as much. Her own senses had heightened since she had gotten together with Steve, so if she couldn’t hear what was above ground too well, then there wasn’t a good chance he would have better luck.

“We’ll just have to keep going this way,” she decided quickly, already taking Wanda’s arm and tugging her forward again. “If they catch us leaving, then we’ll at least be closer to Sam. One of us will be able to get past to reach him.”

There was a scuffle of shoes as Steve resumed following her. As they made it further down the passageway, Natasha thought she heard him audibly urging Barnes along beside him, inadvertently revealing that they were starting to lag further behind.

Just before that could become cause for concern, Natasha spotted the outline of light around the edges of the second tunnel door above them. Usually a metal ladder was kept propped against the edge to reach the hatch. However, Wanda didn’t let her waste much time fumbling around to find it. There was only a slight crackle of psionic energy as warning before red light burst from behind Nat. It launched upward, forcing the trap door open with an audible snap as the metal latch over it was broken off. Faint sunlight streamed in through the opening, revealing Steve unhooking his shield from his arm right beside Wanda. He held it out as much as possible while also bearing Barnes’s weight on his other side.

Natasha instantly recognized what Steve was offering to do. Without a word, she strode over to his side, braced her hand against his shoulder, and stepped onto the shield. With a boost from Steve, she was able to jump high enough to clear the space between them and the trap door. She caught herself with a hand on either side of the opening and pulled herself up and over the rest of the way out.

When she turned back to the opening in the tool shed’s floor, she saw Wanda already following her lead. The young witch lost her grip slightly after the jump up, but Natasha was quick to seize her hand and literally help her out.

Steve went to help Barnes next. Obviously, he wasn’t able to jump up the way the rest of them could, so Steve set his shield aside and practically draped Barnes over his shoulders. With a slight grunt, he then raised Barnes over his head, stretching up as close as he could get to the trap door. Natasha had to stretch to meet him the rest of the way, but was able to get a secure grip on the back of Barnes’s vest.

Her knife wound flared in burning protest as she tried to take the super-soldier’s weight completely from Steve. Wanda was beside her in an instant, grabbing the straps of his vest and helping haul him up. Together, they managed to bring him out and guide him to gently collapse on his back on the floor between them.

His wound had gotten worse. Blood was now oozing all down his side, and the loss was making his face grow paler by the second. His gaze was once again unfocused on anything in front of him, expression loose with dizziness. Had it not been for the serum in his blood, he probably would have passed out by now.

“James,” Wanda gasped, crawling over him. She grasped his face, and then dropped one hand to the gash in his side, fingers shimmering with the beginnings of her scarlet.

“Wanda,” Natasha warned, “do not overheat.”

“But I can…I can…” she said, sounding breathless as she tried to form an explanation, thus alerting Natasha that she was probably pushing it already.

“Wanda, nothing you do will be good for him if you pass out in the middle of it. It’s _his_ pain. You have to let him feel it.”

Wanda looked aghast at the idea. And maybe a little surprised, too, that Natasha has figured out what she had been doing telepathically. Thankfully, though, she didn’t argue with the spy. Natasha could see the desire to do so cross her face briefly, but slowly melt away to a realization and begrudging acceptance that the other woman was right. She had to pace herself.

Steve popped up behind them, having to maneuver himself a bit in order to fit the shield on his arm through the square space. Natasha turned to offer herself as an anchor for him to hold onto as he pulled himself the rest of the way through. Once Steve was out, he immediately went to help get Barnes back onto his feet.

Barnes was sluggish to cooperate, as was another sign that he was battling the effects of shock (and losing). Wanda clung to his other side, the injured side, and added the necessary pressure to his wound with her hand (though any traces of her powers seemed to be gone for the time being). Barnes sagged against her, threatening her balance with his larger frame.

“Baby…” he mumbled.

“I’ve got you,” Wanda promised. Then, more so at Steve, she repeated more insistently, “I’ve got him.”

There was a beat of hesitation before Steve stepped away, gauging how well the pair managed without him. Yet the moment of pause was gone within seconds, and he was back to their rushed pace for escape, this time taking the lead as they filed out of the shelter of the shed with his shield raised to his chest.

Ironically, now that they were above ground, the sound of beating rotors couldn’t be heard at all. That could have been a sign that whoever had been flying low enough to be heard (somewhat) from underground had passed them by. However, Natasha (and clearly none of her teammates) wasn’t willing to rule out the possibility that the craft had landed nearby, and whoever had been piloting was waiting for them somewhere in the surrounding estate grounds. The thought alone was enough to get Natasha’s adrenaline rushing again, urging her to run the rest of the way across the abandoned property to where their quinjet was waiting. But with Barnes wounded as badly as he was, she knew they wouldn’t be able to manage it.

They made it several yards away from the shed without any trouble, sticking closer to whatever shrubbery they encountered as opposed to the open road running alongside them. Although, that distance soon became a curse when the sound of twigs snapping underfoot could be heard. The sounds were close, but not close enough to be mistaken for one of them.

“Steve,” she murmured, gripping the back of his sleeve.

“I hear ‘em,” he replied knowingly, slowing his steps to a stop. Natasha followed suit, and she could hear without turning to see that Wanda and Barnes did as well.

Natasha did turn to see how far they had gotten from the storage shed. It was still visible from where they stood, yet was definitely too far for them to have any hope of reaching it when they couldn’t run. Not unless they split up again.

Natasha pressed close to Steve, readied to whisper the suggestion to him. However, the words were lost in her throat when she spotted the distant movement of figures approaching them over the edge of Steve’s shield.

Without realizing it, Natasha’s arm had stretched out as if to cover Barnes and Wanda, who had lagged a few steps behind them, also against her knowledge.

“Get behind me,” she prompted, waving slightly towards her and Steve. Then she pointed briefly to the gash in Barnes’s side. “Hide that. And no matter what happens, don’t use your powers.”

Wanda wordlessly obeyed, all but dragging Barnes with her closer behind Steve and Nat. Once they were within arm’s reach, she readjusted her grip on Barnes, angling him so that she was covering the sight of his wound with her body. Hopefully with the both of them also behind Steve’s shield, it wouldn’t be too obvious that he was relying on her to stand. Meanwhile, Natasha stood beside Steve, unveiling her sole remaining stun baton and holding it forward in warning as the approaching figures neared them.

“Captain Rogers!” one of them called. It was a woman, flanked by two men on either side of her. All three of them had a gun in hand. Though, as they came within vicinity of Steve and the others, their weapons were slowly lowered to their sides. The woman holstered hers altogether, holding up her other hand in a sign of no ill-intent.

As she stepped closer to the small group of Avengers, Natasha noticed both she and the men with her bore dark, simple uniforms beneath their respective winter coats. They almost looked like the stealth-team uniforms Steve and Natasha’s colleagues wore when they were part of the STRIKE team at SHIELD (Steve was even wearing his own now). The woman, in particular, resembled a typical SHIELD agent, given her sharp, collected composure that went right down to her dark hair pulled into a neat bun behind her head not unlike the deputy director, Maria Hill, herself.

“Captain Rogers,” the woman repeated. She halted in her tracks when she was still a good few feet from Steve and Natasha. Warily, she eyed their weapons, which didn’t falter even though she had holstered her own. “Agent Romanoff,” she added with a respectful nod to Natasha beside him.

“Who the hell are you?” Steve demanded brusquely, his own gaze going between her and the two men lingering behind her.

“I’m Agent 14 with SHIELD’s special services,” she answered dutifully. “Our teams were told to be on alert for your arrival in our assigned sectors, should you need any aid.”

“SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore,” Steve pointed out before she could elaborate further.

“Alright, then,” she returned smoothly. “Just Agent 14. Or if you want, Agent Fontaine.” She straightened her posture to further her professional decorum, gesturing vaguely to the two men beside her. “We’ve been performing operations based in this area when we received an emergency signal on the security line, 0-4-0-5.”

Steve and Natasha exchanged a look at that. 0405. That was the secret communication line Fury used.

Of course, knowing such classified information wasn’t enough to automatically earn their trust anymore. In that moment, Natasha wondered if Steve was thinking back to what Rollins had said about hidden rats potentially lingering in the few remaining branches of SHIELD, just as she was.

However, she _had _contacted Hill and Fury requesting help in their search for Wanda. There hadn’t been many signs of feedback until now.

The agent pressed on, “Is there any support you need from our team, Captain Rogers? Agent?”

Natasha slowly lowered her baton as she exchanged another look with Steve. His expression was less suspicious now, and more torn instead, reflecting Natasha’s own internal conflict to trust agents she didn’t recognize.

He raised his shield higher, as if that would better mask his words. “Nat,” he whispered. “He’s going to bleed out…”

There was a grunt from behind them as Wanda struggled with Barnes’s weight for a moment, inadvertently furthering Steve’s point. Barnes needed medical attention, and he needed it _now. _By the time they reached Sam while traveling on foot (even if Steve carried him), _and_ located a medical facility they could trust…it would probably be too late to save him.

The sound of Wanda struggling also earned the lead agent’s attention, for she tried to look over Steve’s shoulder to see the source of the sound. Despite herself, Natasha angled herself to further cover her other teammates behind her.

“How fast can you get us to a medical facility?” Steve asked.

“And hospitals are out of the question.” Natasha added, well-aware that there would only be further complications if they tried taking an internationally wanted fugitive somewhere public for treatment.

“Understood,” the agent said in response to Natasha. “Either way, our current base of operations is closest. It has a fully-equipped medical wing. By jet, it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes to get there.”

Steve didn’t bother waiting for Natasha’s approval. He stepped aside and lowered his shield, finally revealing the full image of Wanda and Barnes behind them. “Can you get him there in time to patch this up?”

There was a beat of silence as Agent 14 took in the sight before her. She didn’t seem at all fazed by the presence of the Winter Soldier with them, but instead seemed genuinely focused on the wound itself, assessing it.

“We’ll have to hurry,” she decided, already gesturing to the two agents behind her to move forward. The taller of the two went to Barnes’s other side and slung the soldier’s flesh arm over his shoulders, helping to fully prop up the soldier rather than have him sagging against Wanda. The second agent hovered awkwardly behind Wanda, gauging whether or not she was willing to let him take over on Barnes’s other side.

She wasn’t.

“Our craft isn’t far from here,” their leader went on, beginning to turn back the way they’d come. “Just follow us.”

Natasha still felt a bit of unease as she watched the two strangers escort her equally apprehensive teammates back the way they had come. Steve watched them with her for a moment, bringing a hand up to barely touch the small of her back.

“You should go with them,” he told her softly. “I’ll stay back and get to Sam. Let him know there’s been a change in plans.”

Evidently, Agent 14 overheard him. She stopped in her tracks to turn back towards Natasha and Steve. “With all due respect, Captain Rogers, I would have to advise against solo activity in this area. We’ve been investigating suspicious activity around here for a few months now, and from what we’ve learned, whoever has been revisiting this property has been gathering forces. If they were to act, I highly doubt Fury would appreciate us leaving you behind to deal with it by yourself.”

_Suspicious activity for a few months now._ Natasha couldn’t help but look over her shoulder, where all that remained in sight of the ballet academy was the tool shed. _What have you been doing out here, Belova?_

“Yeah, well,” Steve was saying as Natasha mused, “I’m sure something so reckless wouldn’t surprise him coming from me. But we’ve got a jet of our own grounded around here, and the pilot was still aboard. We can’t leave him, either.”

“How far from here?” the agent questioned.

“It can’t be more than a mile or two.”

The agent cocked her head, taking a couple of heartbeats to glance around them. “Our craft’s system didn’t detect any others in the area. Are you sure it wasn’t just a drop off job?”

Steve’s expression became pinched, as if he were personally offended. “No…no, he wouldn’t just leave.”

The agent raised her hands again to show acquiescence at his tone. “I’m sorry, Captain. If we had seen anyone else of your team on the way here, we would have had them accompany us to find you. Now, we can’t leave you behind, and we can’t waste much more time if you want to get the Winter Soldier treated.”

Steve floundered for a second, looking to Natasha beside him. Whether for support of his argument or for guidance, she didn’t know. She was still half-distracted by trying to contemplate what Yelena could have been working on out here—what _else_ this…this _version_ of Yelena was keeping from her. If she truly had been building something for months now, then there was likely enough strength to her party to drive Sam off the property against his orders. Or worse, to have grabbed him like Yelena originally promised to do to Wanda…

After a conflicted moment of silence from both Avengers, Agent 14 went on with an air of urgency, “I can arrange for a search team to come back here once we’ve arrived back to base, but as it stands, we need to take off to see to those injuries.”

Natasha noticed the pointed look the agent gave her. She was aware she probably looked pretty worse for wear, herself, after not one, but _two_ one-on-one scraps with Yelena. She could feel her cut from the other spy’s knife, in particular, still oozing blood at an agonizingly slow pace. Obviously not in the same, debilitating quantity that Barnes had suffered, but still. She wasn’t cocky enough to believe she was in any shape to potentially go looking for another fight by looking for whatever—or whoever—had happened to Sam.

Numbly, Natasha strode forward, gravitating towards the agent before her. It was definitely disheartening to have to resign to losing track of another teammate so soon after they had found the first, but reluctantly, she did. After all, making difficult decisions had been an integral part of her teaching here, on this very property.

It took several heartbeats for Steve to follow her. She knew this was an even tougher decision for him, given that willingly leaving anyone behind had never been in his nature. Least of all one of his closest friends. She could sense the tension the situation instilled in him even before he jogged forward to walk in step with her. Natasha simply kept her focus on following Agent 14, though she did notice Steve clenching his jaw in her peripheral.

By the time they reached sight of the agent’s quinjet, which had landed in plain view on the side of the main dirt road, Steve had tempered his agitation enough to ask her gently, “Do you need any help?”

“I’m fine,” Natasha answered. Her tone was still fairly dazed from this entire ordeal, so she probably wasn’t very convincing. Steve didn’t speak on it, although he did place a hand on her lower back as if to provide support in _some_ form. Natasha still didn’t react, especially as they reached the boarding ramp to the quinjet, and were about to enter mixed company. She even pressed her hand against her cut, hiding the weak spot just as much as she was applying pressure to stem the flow of blood that was beginning to seep over.

The jet’s cabin was a typical SHIELD-issued aircraft, though it was significantly tinier than the quinjets issued to the higher-level agents (which obviously included the Avengers). It was a very straightforward craft, with a cockpit and seats along either wall. That meant additional space and supplies were limited, leaving the other agents (Natasha counted four of them, including the two that had first arrived with Agent 14) to lay Barnes out on the floor. Wanda promptly sat with him, carefully bringing his head into her lap while the other agents fussed over his injured side.

Their leader waited for Steve and Natasha at the top of the ramp. As they passed each other, Natasha turned to her with a quiet, “Thank you, Agent.”

The other woman simply dipped her head in another courteous nod to Natasha, showing an almost pupil-like respect to the spy even though she appeared to be at least ten years Natasha’s senior.

“I don’t think there’s a need for formalities,” she stated as she activated the button to raise the ramp. “Like the Captain said, there is no SHIELD anymore.”

With her hand outstretched, the other woman reintroduced herself as, “La Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. My team calls me the Contessa, but my friends call me Valentina.”

Natasha took the agent’s hand and shook it briefly, still with one of her own pressed to her cut. “Very well. La Contessa.”

The other woman faltered for a split second, taken aback by Natasha’s slightly cold tone. Natasha didn’t care how her address came off. She _was_ grateful for the aid they were given, but that still didn’t mean she was just going to trust the other team of agents right away, and she wanted to make that known. Just in case.

The Contessa’s surprise was fleeting, and she was quick to resume her collected, professional visage. The very moment the ramp behind her clicked closed, she moved around Natasha and the other Avengers, shelling out orders as she approached the other end of the jet. “Wheels up _now,_ Steranko. I want us back to base in record time.”

There was a bustle of movement throughout the cabin as three of the other agents readied the craft for take-off. The fourth stayed by Barnes, both hands applying pressure to his wound.

Meanwhile, Steve had taken a place beside Wanda near Barnes’s head, anxiety clear in the tension of his hand clutching his friend’s metal shoulder. Natasha wearily made her way around them, settling on her knees on Wanda’s other side. She suppressed the urge to sigh heavily and reveal just how heavy a toll the fight with Yelena had left on her. However, she did let her bruised and battered body sag from its tiredness, even dropping her head to rest on Wanda’s shoulder. The other agents continued milling about the cabin, though it was mere background noise to her. She could feel her mind beginning to drift into a senseless nothingness as she finally allowed herself a much-needed moment to sit and just be with her teammates. 


	9. Chapter 9

Natasha was absolutely teeming with distrust. Those negative feelings were strong, like another tangible presence at Wanda’s side. At her other side, Steve’s mind was absolutely consumed with worry for James. Soon after take-off, he even took over monitoring and applying pressure to his friend’s ghastly wound. Their emotions mixed horribly with Wanda’s own concerns, which she did her best to manage by combing her fingers through James’s hair, subtly reminding herself that despite everything else, they were at least together now. Although, it was difficult to keep calm when she could feel the tense, uneasy emotions from both of her teammates on either side of her. It was like a vicious cycle, the three of them feeding into each other’s apprehensions while James labored for breath in her lap.

It didn’t help that none of them felt as though they could disclose their next steps yet. The quinjet was so tiny, there was a possibility that even a whispered conversation would be overheard by the agents at the other end of the cabin. So, the three Avengers merely sat huddled close together in the back of the aircraft, not daring to exchange anything beyond the occasional sideways glance while in the company of strangers. Strangers who had somehow convinced them to further distance themselves from another teammate that had gone missing. Yes, it wasn’t lost on Wanda that Natasha and Steve had boarded without Sam. And they hadn’t looked pleased with themselves over the fact, either.

Some minutes passed, and then the quinjet was shuddering in the telltale signs of deceleration before an eventual landing. Natasha, who despite her suspicious and alert mood, had been merely resting against Wanda’s shoulder until then, now sat up straighter. She braced a hand against the witch’s back, whispering, “We’re in the way. Come on, up.”

Despite her words, Natasha, herself, didn’t stand up. She rocked back slightly in a vague attempt to, pressing her hand to her side. Wanda could hear a distressed humming at the surface of the spy’s mind, indicating that she was fighting back an urge to wince or display any other sign of pain in front of the unfamiliar agents around them.

Steve also noticed her slowness to rise. “Nat—”

“It’s fine,” she insisted, finally allowing herself to wince. Though it was more a product of regret for the harshness of her tone rather than a reaction to whatever was physically ailing her. “It’s just a cut.”

“Don’t lie to him,” Wanda scolded before she could stop herself. She saw the way Natasha’s palm was pressing against her ribs, barely covering the knife mark sitting lower on her side, let alone applying pressure to the cut.

“I’m fine,” Natasha said, equally insistent. This time, as if to prove a point, she forced herself to stand. However, it was obvious to anyone looking that she was using her free hand braced against Wanda’s shoulder for support as she did. The witch could hear the sharp ticks of pain at the surface of her mind, giving away what she was concealing (to Wanda, at least).

Once she was on her feet, the spy did finally allow some of that discomfort to show as she pressed against her side a little more firmly. “I’ve had worse before. Probably just some bruising.”

Steve scowled. “I don’t know if I’d consider ‘worse’ a reliable unit of measurement.”

“He’s right,” a new voice agreed. It was the leader of their rescue party—the Contessa, Wanda thought she had been called. She was striding over to their side of the cabin as the craft’s movements became even slower, presumably readying to lower the boarding ramp as soon as it stopped. “Even if you feel one way, internal damage could be another story. If it’s any consolation, Agent Romanoff, we’re willing to do a full medical check-in on each of you, so you don’t feel left out.”

“Oh, joy,” Natasha returned sardonically. Then, after sucking in a breath and restoring a brave front to her face, went on in her best ‘working’ tone, “Well, until then, what can you tell us about what you’ve been seeing in that area our pilot went missing in?”

The Contessa crossed her arms over her chest, her voice equally business-like. “Well, we were outsourced to the area two months ago, so most everything we have is still speculation. Whatever mob it is that’s been frequenting those grounds is hiding their project somewhere in the mansion.”

At that point, Wanda tuned them out, returning her attention to James. He was fairly out of it, but she was keeping track of the surface of his mind, listening for that low hum of activity. A hum of life. His wound was sickeningly deep, and even though he had a variation of the super-soldier serum, she knew its healing factor would do little good for him if he bled out before it could run its course.

Wanda desperately wished for a way to give him back whatever traces of the serum had transferred over to her. She would give him every drop of enhanced healing factors in her blood if it helped him, be it from the serum or alien energy.

As the quinjet made its final stop, Wanda placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder where he still sat on his knees beside her. It was a silent request for help lifting up James. Perhaps it was overprotective and even a bit childish of her, but she didn’t want anyone else touching him. It was for his comfort as much as hers, for she knew how he would feel about being handled by strangers while in the vulnerable state he was in.

Steve understood, and he obliged her unspoken request, ducking his head under his friend’s metal arm and helping haul him up. James was heavy (even more so when he had his gear and weapons still strapped to every conceivable holster on his uniform), but with Steve’s help, it wasn’t as much of a struggle for Wanda to lug him forward when they needed to. James was barely walking between them, his feet practically dragging underneath him, and his entire form shaking from the agony of the gash in his side.

As they navigated the base with a pair agents leading the way for them, Wanda was suddenly struck with the disorientation of having no idea where they were. The flight had only been a few minutes, so she figured they were still in Russia, somewhere. The building itself was old and small, the brimstone walls almost reminding her of Strucker’s castle. Almost. They were more decrepit, with some stones missing from the paneling on either side of them. The hallways were long and dark, making Wanda feel like a rabbit trying to bury itself in its burrow.

It was a small comfort to hear Natasha still conversing with their rescue team’s leader just a few short steps behind her. She knew Natasha’s suspicious nature in this situation wasn’t groundless, and she was actually grateful that despite being just as physically spent as her teammates, Natasha had the wherewithal to still be on alert for these strangers’ intentions, gauging how much they could be trusted by how much information they were willing to give about their operations here. From the small samples of the conversation Wanda actually tuned into, she figured the gist of it was they were investigating whatever was going on back at the mansion, though hadn’t deemed what little they learned enough to support them in a personal endeavor to go in and see what they could find firsthand.

Natasha didn’t say it aloud, but Wanda could hear a quiet, curious droning at the surface of her mind, as if tempted to offer to investigate the grounds again herself. Though the witch doubted Natasha would actually commit to the idea, given how much she had been on edge the entire time they were there. Not to mention, they had a bigger priority to find Sam once they had all gotten the medical attention they needed here.

Still, Wanda could tell that Natasha’s thoughts were repeatedly going back to the manor. Particularly to the woman who had led the ambush on them there. The one who made something in Natasha’s mind give a particular click every time the Contessa used her name. _Belova._

_She did this to James. _The thought crossed the witch’s mind bitterly. For a moment, she completely ignored the conflict the other woman’s presence gave Natasha, and instead, let her mind wander into dark places, wishing for a way to make Belova pay for stabbing James. Wanda hadn’t thought much about getting revenge on anyone for anything in so long (not since her stunt with Ultron to enact it on Tony), but it was at least distracting from the time being. Something else to keep her mind busy while she and Steve practically dragged James through an unfamiliar maze of hallways, with James bleeding profusely from his side, staining her own clothes where the wound had become pressed against her.

Her thoughts effectively kept her distracted until they reached a larger, circular room that forked off towards several other hallways. A team of men appeared from one of them, wheeling a gurney with them. They met Steve and Wanda at the center of the room, one of them immediately reaching for James with gloved hands.

Thus far, James had been stumbling along in a daze like a drunkard. At the sight of medics reaching for him, however, he suddenly jolted backwards, fully alert, and making a weak sound of protest. Steve had already released him for one medic to take his place at the other soldier’s side, so James nearly fell over completely, his weight threatening to take Wanda with him.

“James,” she whispered. “It’s alright—hey! It’s alright.”

Even without the confusion brought on by blood loss, she knew what medical settings reminded him of. She tried to direct his gaze towards her, desperate to assure him that she would never leave him in such malicious hands. “James, look at me. Look at me, honey…”

He didn’t see her. He was too panicked, and the medics were in such a rush to grab him, to get him on the stretcher, they practically shoved her aside to get to him. As he was ushered away by the medical team, she could hear him continue to struggle against those around him, his metal arm lashing out like the claws of a frightened, cornered animal. Although, given his state, his movements were too uncoordinated and weak to do anything more than inconvenience the people trying to get him on the gurney. Once they did, it became apparent that all of his fussing had convinced them that he also needed his wrists and ankles strapped down.

“No, wait!” Wanda rushed forward, panicking a little herself as she realized the restraints would only worsen his confusion with memories past of being experimented on against his will. “Wait, please—he’s—”

Natasha’s hand was familiar, though firm around Wanda’s wrist. She was gentle in her efforts to usher Wanda back. The same couldn’t be said for another one of the medics, who tried to move both women out of the way of the gurney. Amidst the commotion of the medics struggling with James to keep him down, Wanda barely heard the older man’s awkward, “Miss…” before his hands were on her shoulders, forcing her aside. It was clear to Wanda he was in a rush, and his touch didn’t hurt, but the sight of it was still unexpected, and thus, startled her.

That was enough to earn him a sharp remand from the base supervisor nearby. “What is going on here?” she demanded.

The medic immediately backed off, stepping aside just as the Contessa stalked forward, reaching their side of the room in just a few stern strides. Wanda barely noticed the apologetic exchange from the medic to his superior, for she was still paying close attention to James as he was wheeled away on the gurney, his distress palpable even without the use of her telepathy.

“Please,” she whimpered to vague air, unsure even to herself if she was speaking to the medic or the Contessa. “I don’t mean to be a bother, I just…he gets anxious around…in medical settings. If I could just…just let me sit with him, please. Just so he knows he’s alright.”

The Contessa’s gaze darted between Wanda and the medic, her eyes narrowed as she assessed the situation. “Well,” she said after only a brief moment, “if Miss Maximoff can manage to stay out of the way of operations, there’s no reason she can’t be allowed to sit with the Asset. Especially if it could benefit his mental recuperations during his treatment.”

A look of uncertainty crossed the man’s face. Though he looked more afraid to argue with the Contessa. So, instead, he dipped his head in some sort of apology to Wanda before gesturing for her to follow the path his team and their gurney had taken. Wanda didn’t hesitate—didn’t even wait for him to lead the way—before she took off, running after them. She followed her telepathy’s ear, trailing the sound of James’s anxious thoughts, in particular (something she was unfortunately familiar with).

The medical team had already reached a room and were transferring James to a proper bed by the time she reached them. James was still trying to shove off anyone that touched him, although his movements were sluggish again. Wanda overheard something about injecting something into him, followed by someone’s brief question of whether it would have the intended side effects on him given his enhanced system. Though what mattered most to her was that no one questioned her as she weaved between the medics’ bodies to reach the head of the bed.

“James—” She held her soldier’s face between her hands, directing him to look at her amidst the commotion going on around them, as his Winter Soldier uniform and gear were forcibly stripped away until he was just in his undershirt and pants.

His eyes focused, and after a few heavy breaths of panic, he gasped, “Wanda?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here,” she promised, relieved that he seemed able to process that she was there, and that it was at the very least distracting him from everything else.

“Baby…”

“I’m here. I’m right here.”

There was a brief moment of interruption as Wanda shifted to accommodate a medic that had come to her side of the bed. They put James’s metal arm in some sort of cradle-like apparatus that kept it propped up, presumably to tend to the damage the arm had undergone as well.

“I’m here,” Wanda repeated, desperately hoping to appear calm and comforting enough to keep distracting him as she saw a needle approaching his other arm. The syringe was filled with (what she presumed to be) whatever drug had been mentioned before. “I’m going to stay right here. I won’t let them do anything they don’t have to. They’re only going to help.”

He mumbled something that sounded akin to her name, his head lolling against her hand as his consciousness faded. Wanda’s panic spiked for a moment before she remembered they had injected him with something, which she now figured must have been meant to keep him sedate. The witch took comfort in the fact that her telepathy could still hear the surface of his mind methodically ticking, the way minds usually did when someone nodded off to sleep around her.

Regardless, Wanda stayed by his side just as she’d promised. She alternated between watching what the medics were doing to both the stab wound and the damaged metal arm, and simply watching James, running her fingers soothingly over his scalp in case the sedative wore off. And perhaps to remind herself, as well, that he was going to be alright.

* * *

The base grew quieter from there. Or at least, it did where Natasha and Steve stayed behind as Barnes and Wanda were taken further into the depths of the medical ward. The pair had lingered in the large, circular waiting room of sorts with the rest of their rescue party, where there had been a brief commotion over determining everyone’s next course of action. The Contessa had sent her agents to refuel their jet, presumably in preparation to head back out in search for Sam (which Natasha had every intention to be a part of), and then she was stolen away herself by additional agents milling about the base. She’d dismissed herself to the two Avengers by bluntly informing them that she needed to update other bases her team had been working with on what was going on. She had promised to use discretion in describing _who_ had been found with the missing Avengers, and left them with that.

That left the soldier and the spy the only ones still in the circular room, waiting for…_something_. Natasha supposed their own next course of action was either wait for news on Barnes or for the piloting agents to return from tending to the quinjet, so they could search for Sam. Until then, Natasha settled herself in the nearest chair she could find, still holding one hand to the cut she’d gained from Yelena’s knife.

On the other hand, Steve was pacing along the center of the room in agitation, like an animal in some unseeable cage. Natasha could understand why; her partner’s loyalty to not only his principals, but also the people he was close to, was one of his most famous qualities, after all. Barnes, Sam, and Natasha herself, were those people he held closest to him, and now they were scattered, each hurt or missing, and there wasn’t much that could be done about it at the moment.

Natasha decided to help both him and herself. Near the entryway to the hall where Barnes and Wanda had gone, there was an abandoned cart of medical supplies. Gesturing to it, she called softly, “Hey, Cap? You think you can bring that over here?”

It took a second for him to pull himself from his own thoughts and follow her gestures with his eyes. Once he did, though, he wasted no time wheeling the cart over to her and sitting in the chair beside her with it parked in front of the both of them.

Steve was silent for a moment longer as he watched Natasha rifle through the contents on the rickety little cart. There were only basic supplies, as if someone had taken a first aid kit and simply dumped out its contents. Natasha found a pair of bandage scissors and was in the process of using them to cut through her suit around where it had been sliced through, giving her more room to work with the cut there.

“I feel like we’re doing someone else’s job,” Steve said. Despite his previous restlessness, he managed to sound nothing but calm and collected now. “They promised if we came here with them, they would take a look at both you and Bucky.”

“They’re probably short-staffed,” Natasha reasoned, not even looking up from the work she was doing on herself. Her wound stung a little as she dabbed alcohol on it with a less than trustworthy hand towel, but it was manageable. “Judging from the size of this place, it wasn’t meant for stakeouts that lasted more than a couple days, much less for months. Which means not as many people can fit.”

“Still…” Steve replied, some of his uneasiness creeping back.

Natasha reached for a packet of butterfly-strip bandages and held them out to him. “Here. It’ll probably be easier if you do it.”

Steve didn’t ask what she meant. He didn’t need to, given the amount of times she had done the same for him as his field partner after he got too reckless on a mission. He took the bandages from her, and set one over her cut with the careful precision usually saved for one of his sketches. The bandage was only able to cover half of the cut, so he promptly placed a second one over the other half. Natasha softly thanked him when he was done.

“How do you feel otherwise?” Steve asked, letting his hand linger on the edge of the cart after he returned the packet of bandages to it.

“I’m fine. Really. Barely even feel the bruising anymore.” With a slight smirk, she added, “Thanks for the super-serum, there.”

Steve wasn’t amused. “And _otherwise?_”

Natasha sighed, surrendering to the conversation he really wanted to have. “M’fine. It was just a building, after all. And I think it helped that we went in with bigger things to worry about, like whether or not someone had grabbed Wanda before us.”

“Yeah, we got lucky on that part.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Natasha replied hollowly, although she didn’t truly believe that was the case. _Waiting for you was like waiting for a dog to respond to a whistle._ “Or maybe Yelena didn’t actually want her to begin with. When she did get there, she said she was waiting for me. And the rest, well…” She nodded down at the opening in her suit, where Steve had just bandaged her cut. “That part went about as well as I’d been expecting.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, even though Natasha couldn’t at all imagine what he was sorry for.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

“I know, but still.” He shook his head vaguely, as if even he was unsure of what he meant to say. “It may not be the same, but I remember when it was Bucky who resurfaced out of nowhere. How it felt to have to fight him because neither of us were the same as we’d once been. And how much I needed to hear it when you said none of what happened to him was my fault. So, on the off-chance you don’t know it already, whatever happened to her…”

“Yeah,” Natasha cut in softly. “I know.”

The spy stole a brief glance around the room, as if to confirm for herself that it was empty, and thus, provided them with some sort of privacy. Then, she let her head fall onto Steve’s shoulder, sagging completely against him. She could feel his head rest atop hers in return, his large hand falling onto her thigh and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

They indulged in the silence around them for the next few minutes, finally winding down from the non-stop stress and anxiety of the past few hours. From rushing to Novosibirsk in hopes of finding Wanda first, to the fight at the manor, to being rescued by an unfamiliar team of agents while Barnes nearly bled out. Natasha could feel some of the strain from it all subside now, while she was able to just sit in silence with Steve with the cut in her side patched up.

But then her mind wandered back to Yelena again. Reuniting with her had gone about as smoothly as Natasha had been expecting (that is, not at all). And yet, the more she thought, the more the Widow remembered just how much something about Yelena had seemed…_off._ Even disregarding her newly-fostered rage against Natasha.

“What _did_ happen to her?” Natasha heard herself ask aloud.

Steve thought for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Yelena. You saw her, right? When she freed herself from the screen?”

Natasha lifted her head to better gauge his answer. Steve was nodding as she did, sitting up straighter, himself. “I did,” he replied simply. “I thought all of you got some variation of an enhancing serum there, though.”

“No,” Natasha said confidently. “It was just me. The Red Room only wanted one Black Widow at a time so that they could save on the resources it would take to make a serum. At least…that was how it was before…”

_Before they chose me to be that subject. And I made the entire project a failure to them. _

Natasha knew better than to voice that aloud, and risk Steve thinking she considered herself a failure. She was proud to bear the mantle of Black Widow, and she was also proud to have brought it to the Avengers, to make it something good. But she also knew her former peers in the Red Room didn’t share the sentiment.

“Do you think they did something to her after you left?” Steve asked after a few more beats of silence, wherein she had started musing to herself.

“They must have. I don’t know how else she would’ve been able to bend that iron.”

Natasha hesitated before continuing, and when she did, her voice was quieter. As if a part of her she didn’t want to acknowledge still wanted to protect Yelena, and her vulnerabilities with her (_weaknesses _as their former handlers would call them). “And there were little things, too. Like this moment where she saw my stun baton, and…she hesitated. And that isn’t normal for her. She was never scared of anything. And then again, when I got her with the Widow’s Bite. Even when it wore off, she was…she was just still so out of it.”

There was another beat of silence while Steve thought. This time, he was wringing his hands, which Natasha had noticed both he and Barnes tended to do when they already knew what they wanted to say, but were worried how it would be received. “That also sounds like Bucky,” he said slowly, as if testing her reaction to each word. “Like a reaction to the shock therapy they put him through.”

Natasha could see how he would think that. Try as she might not to, she recognized how well that fit. The skittishness around Natasha’s electrically-charged weapons. Hell, now that Natasha was really thinking back on it…

“That would explain the confusion, too,” she mused out loud. Then, before Steve could ask, she explained, “There was a moment where Barnes confronted her, and she got cross with him. But she said something along the lines of him being the one to take me away from the Red Room.”

“Didn’t he, though?” Steve asked curiously. “You two did go against them when you…had that night—”

“Right, yeah, I know,” Natasha cut in, knowing it made him uncomfortable to even think about the fact that she had been with his best friend years and years ago, even though it had been before any of them truly knew each other. Usually, none of them spoke on it at all ever since she and Steve fought about it when he found out last year. “But I let that happen because I _didn’t _want to leave. It was just to distract him, so I could get out of trouble with our handlers for messing up the rest of the mission. I had never actually considered leaving until Barton showed up.”

“So, she’s missing the time in between Bucky and Barton? Could something have happened in those years that you didn’t know about?”

“I suppose anything could have,” Natasha remarked dourly. Her frustration wasn’t with Steve, of course, but rather with herself for being so selfish in the past. For leaving without even thinking of how she would be letting Yelena (and probably every other Red Room student at the time) suffer from the organization’s loss of her.

Despite being lost in her thoughts, Natasha was still aware of the way Steve was watching her. His expression was still downturn in sympathy, and his hands were still fidgeting in apprehension. However, when he spoke, there was a sudden hardness to his tone this time. The first traces of anger. “Did they ever do that to you? The shock therapy they put Bucky and Wanda through?”

“No,” Natasha was quick to assure, stroking his arm down to his hand so that she could hold it in extra reassurance. “No, that was more of Hydra’s style.”

She wisely let her response end there, not wanting to get too far into the ways the Red Room kept her under their thumb. The more drawn-out torture of mental manipulation, and being brainwashed to believe their ways were the _only _way. That orphaned girls like her had no other purpose in life but to serve their country from its underbelly.

“I think that’s why it doesn’t feel right to me,” Natasha explained instead. “To think the Red Room was the one that did something to her. Well, that and the fact that they disbanded after I left. If it was that easy to discontinue the project without me, then what else were they keeping her around for?”

“Then maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe she got caught up in some sort of splinter group later, like the sorts we’ve been seeing from Hydra ever since that fell apart.”

“Maybe,” Natasha conceded. Internally, she was begging whatever forces that controlled fate to keep that from being true. “That’s just what we need on top of hunting down Hydra loyalists, I guess.”

Steve smirked a little at her dry tone. He slipped his hand free of her hold to wrap around her shoulders, bringing her close enough to steal a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll figure it out, Nat. And whatever happens, we’ll get through it.”

It wasn’t them that Natasha was worried about. It was Yelena, and this newfound sense of guilt. That sense that she should have never left Yelena behind. It had haunted her before, deep down, but now that she had actually seen Yelena again, and had suspicions that someone else continued using her even when the Red Room was gone, that remorse was all the more visceral. Before, Natasha could have easily shoved it down—maybe even convinced herself there was no point in going after Yelena when she still didn’t know if perhaps the other spy had gotten herself killed working for someone else—but now, she wasn’t nearly as self-important. Now, her feelings felt like a physical burden on her chest, bearing down on her with all the weight of what she’d learned about being a real family from her time as an Avenger. From what she’d seen in Clint, and Steve, and Wanda as they continuously refused to give up on people like her and Barnes.

Steve was right. She couldn’t leave Yelena behind any more than he had been able to leave behind Bucky when he’d resurfaced from their past.

She had to go back for her. 

Natasha abruptly rose to her feet. She barely realized she had moved at all until she heard Steve’s concerned, “Nat?” behind her.

She squeezed his hand with hers in a vague show of comfort, although the gesture was weak, for she was still half-distracted with figuring out just what exactly she’d decided to do. “I’ll be right back,” she promised. “You stay here. Make sure Barnes and Wanda are OK.”

Steve’s expression became pinched in confusion. “Where are you going?”

She knew there was no point in lying to him. He knew her too well at this point to buy even her best deceptions. “I’m going back to the academy.”

“_What?_”

The spy’s voice dropped to a whisper, hyper-aware of where they were, and the risk there was of someone overhearing them from one of the various hallway entrances surrounding them. “I should’ve gone back for her before. So, I’m doing it now, while I have a second chance.”

Steve stood up as she turned to go, his hand stubbornly lacing their fingers together, keeping her close. “You really think that’s a good idea? Confronting her alone, again? _Splitting up,_ again? Especially when we’ve lost track of Sam. Hell, we’re not even sure where _we_ are.”

“I know. But the longer we wait, the farther away she’s going to get—”

“Nat,” he interrupted gently. “I know where you’re coming from—really, I do. But there’s only so much we can take on at once. Take it from someone who tried to hack a helicarrier, _and_ get through to his friend in Winter Soldier mode at the same time.”

Natasha couldn’t help but wince at the memory, remembering all too well how she had been the one to find him bruised and bloodied on the side of the Potomac river after that fight.

“We’ll find her,” Steve promised, “but we’ll need to stick together to do it right. So, for now, we need to keep waiting for Bucky. And then we’ll get out of here to find Sam. And then we’ll find her. Maybe even call in Tony for help.”

_Tony._ In the madness of their escape, and now taking shelter in an unfamiliar base, Natasha had nearly forgotten he was still back home, waiting for them (and babysitting Pietro). Knowing him, the inventor would probably still be camped out in his workshop, either doing everything he could to track them with his tech, or distracting himself with some other project until he heard from them directly.

“Right…right,” she said listlessly. “We should start there.”

Her next words were spoken to his chest as she fished around her suit’s utility belt for the pouch that held her StarkPhone. Hopefully if she avoided his gaze, it would be harder for Steve to realize she still had underlying motives. “We should see if we can contact Stark now. Maybe he can give us a head start on tracking down our jet that disappeared with Sam.”

Once she found her phone, she began to listlessly wander off, distracted with her own tapping at the little screen in her hand.

“Nat…” Steve said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion as she began to approach the mouth of the nearest hall.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised, knowing how it must look to him, her leaving right after he’d had to remind her they needed to stay together. “Just going to try to find a good signal to message Tony. We are literally underground, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Wait here and see if there are any updates on Barnes. I’ll be right back to you.”

“OK.” He sat back down, his gaze remaining fixed on her. His suspicious expression lessened some, although he still felt the need to remind her, “I trust you.”

Natasha nodded her acknowledgement, finally looking up to meet his eye as she did. She didn’t say as much out loud, but she did know she had his trust, and she genuinely didn’t intend to jeopardize that. Then, she turned to head back down her path, continuing to study her phone screen for any signs of a sturdy signal. It wasn’t very promising, but she was too stubborn to quit trying. With any luck, she could at least get a couple of shorthand messages into Jarvis’s system, and Tony would know enough to decipher it meant they needed help locating Sam. That, and that she needed help tracing a call from the night before.

* * *

Once the wound in James’s side was sutchered, and the medics left him to rest from it, time slipped away in pure silence. Minutes—perhaps even hours—passed as James settled into a state of true sleep. After the day’s events, and the severity of his injuries, Wanda was beyond grateful he could achieve that restful state. Though for the same reasons, she couldn’t manage to calm herself enough to get much rest of her own. Her heart was still thumping uneasily in her chest, the same way it had been during their escape from the academy building. She was still on high-alert, now sitting in a chair at James’s uninjured side and monitoring even the slightest movement of a shadow.

Somehow, despite being on such high-alert, she missed the sound of sheets rustling beside her. It wasn’t until James uttered a tired groan that she noticed he had started to stir.

“James?” she murmured, leaning closer to him. She hesitated for a moment, a foolish thought of the slightest touch somehow hurting him further crossing her mind before she let herself touch his face again, cradling it in one hand and stroking his hair with the other.

He leaned into her touch with a tired groan, eyes blinking half-open. His gaze was bleary, though more from tiredness than pain now, and he met hers with a bright shine of relief.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he said softly, the words slurred a bit.

Wanda’s own relief left her in a shaky sigh. She grasped his face between both hands, closing what little distance remained between them to pepper feverish kisses all over his face. It felt like so long since she’d been able to kiss him. It had been two days, and an ugly fight since she’d had any shade of closeness like this with him, let alone knew whether or not she would have another chance at it again.

Amidst her fervor, James gave a small grunt. She instantly reeled back, her previous concerns of somehow hurting him more coming back to her in a hurry. However, he didn’t seem to be in any pain (at least, not because of her), and even chased her touch, nuzzling further against the hand she kept at the side of his face.

“OK?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m alright,” she answered, her voice nearly failing her—nearly overwrought with exasperation that he was asking about _her_ given what had happened to him.

He stirred again, making another small grunt as he seemed to gather some wherewithal he didn’t fully have at the moment to speak. “Baby?”

It took her a second to realize what he was asking. She didn’t know how she’d misunderstood him when he said it earlier, given that he’d never used the term in reference to her before.

“They’re still there,” she promised for the time being. Anything else, she still wasn’t sure of. Not after the stress of the day’s events, and not even after what happened in the park the previous day, when her powers had overwhelmed her. “I can still feel them.”

James exhaled heavily, his entire body going lax for the first time since he’d woken. In fact, it was the first she had seen him let himself be completely relaxed since either of them left the Tower in New York.

She sagged in relief, too, returning her other hand to his hair to resume stroking his head the way he usually liked. “We’re alright. It was you who had us scared for a moment there.”

“M’sorry,” he mumbled earnestly. His eyelids began to droop more and more the longer she went on petting him. His next few words were weighed down by that drowsiness. “Shouldn’t…shouldn’t ha’ worried. M’not…not allowed to die, ‘member? Hafta’ follow orders.”

Again, it took her a moment to recognize what he was referring to. Once she did, she felt her heart grow heavier in equal parts comfort and nostalgia for the moment in question. Back when they had been at Stark’s vacation home, and they playfully joked about how she would be the death of him. That had been only a few days ago, yet it somehow seemed like a lifetime ago now. However, it did make her feel better to know that by bringing it up now, it meant he was feeling well enough to tease her like that again.

“Only that one, _soldat,_” she said, playing along. Then, more seriously, “How do you feel now?”

“Better now,” he replied with another nuzzle into her palm. “Kinda…a little out’ve it. We should…should ask what they gave me, ‘n ask for a doggy bag of it.”

Wanda couldn’t help an uneasy chuckle. “I don’t know about that. Can’t risk you thinking you can make a habit out of this.”

“Guess not,” he relented. “Wha’…what about you? Did they…anyone hurt you?”

“No. I’m alright, I promise.” She combed her nails over his head a little more insistently. “Don’t worry about me. Just rest. Once you’ve healed up a little more, they should clear us to travel home. After that, we can put all of this behind us as just another bad chapter.”

“All of it?” he mumbled, looking and sounding genuinely surprised. It would almost be endearing if it wasn’t caused by so much medication flooding his system.

“Mh-hmm.”

“Even the…but wha’ about…the baby?” 

The witch faltered at that. Obviously, she knew that matter wouldn’t just go away once they were home, and was a conversation they would still need to have. But she didn’t want to have it here, outside the security of their home. And she definitely didn’t want to have it now, when he was still fairly loopy from his treatment. Sure, he seemed to be making sense in spite of the drug they had given him, but he was still stripped of some of his usual inhibitions. That had reduced him to his core thoughts and feelings—which, admittedly, were things she _did_ want to know, for he never allowed himself to indulge in them—but she didn’t want to use that against him. She wasn’t going to _interrogate_ him like this, like the sedative (or whatever it was) meant to ease his pain was some sort of truth serum for her to exploit.

“That can be the next part,” she told him for now. “We can talk about it when we get home.”

Just as she’d feared, that wasn’t enough to appease him. At least, not while his mind was like this. He shifted in protest, now leaning his head away from her touch.

“No. I don’t wanna wait,” he insisted, bordering on a petulant whine. “Las’ time I did, you…you weren’ there when I got home.”

“I know, I know.” She averted her gaze to the floor in shame. “I’m sorry—”

“I thought they had you, sweetheart,” he said, his voice shaking with lingering fear. As if there was still a possibility she would be forcibly taken from him. It rattled her heart to see him so distressed, especially when he was supposed to be resting, to be _healing._

“I know,” she repeated uselessly, hoping her tone was enough to be soothing even if her words weren’t. Although, even that was shot to hell as more words spilled madly out of her, her English gradually becoming worse from it. “And I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to put you through that. When I ran after them, I just…I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew I shouldn’t have engaged alone—and I knew it would hurt you when it all went south, but I…I swear, I wasn’t trying to put myself at risk. Not me, and…”

Something cold coursed through her in the brief moment she remembered how she originally ran off. The moment of hesitation she’d had when she first remembered the little one, and how it nearly stopped her from acting. How she now wished she had, because maybe if she’d stayed with Pietro, she wouldn’t have fainted, and they could have avoided at least some of this. “And not them either. Especially not them.”

“Yeah?”

“_Yes,_” she breathed, still feeling the icy ghost of her fear of putting what was partially her soldier at risk—her dear soldier, filled with so much _good_—returning to her for the briefest of moments. “They…there’s a part of _you_ in them and I…I can’t bear to let anything happen to that. I don’t…I don’t know what I was thinking.”

James merely watched in silence as one of her hands fidgeted with his dog tags around her neck. Though she could hear a barely audible groan from him, indicating that he was simply struggling to muster the wherewithal to reply again. Wanda waited patiently for him to find a solid thought, bringing the hand in his hair down to stroke the back of her fingers across his forehead now, as if it would soothe the frown lines that formed there as he concentrated.

“I…” he rasped at first. He winced as he swallowed before going on. “I had a friend tell me not ‘ta…to let the past weigh you down. To let it teach ‘ya instead. She said to…let it help ‘ya learn what you truly want, an’ care about. An’ then a little after that, I heard ‘bout what happened ‘n…when I thought I lost both of you…I learned how much I…I _wanted_ a both of you. I know we only knew ‘bout the baby for a li’l while, but I still…”

He trailed off. This time, Wanda wasn’t sure if it was because of the drug still impeding his senses, or because he genuinely didn’t know how to finish.

Then he blinked up at her again, his gaze filled with a deep shade of self-consciousness, the likes of which she hadn’t seen in him since they’d first met. “S’that dumb?” he questioned softly.

“No,” she answered instantly. “No, it’s not.” With a slight shake of her head, she pulled herself to him again to scatter more kisses across his face.

“Mmm,” he hummed senselessly. His previous drowsiness seemed to be returning to him full-force. A deep, sorrowful part of her now wondered if he was trying so hard to fight it because he thought something more would happen, that she wouldn’t be there when he woke up again. “Don’t wanna…don’t want ‘ya to…get me wrong. Still want what you want. You…you’ll be doin’ all the work after all. But…I don’t wanna be afraid neither. Don’t want fear to decide for us.”

“I know,” Wanda replied without really thinking. “I know. I just…I was scared.”

A knot formed in her throat as she made herself go on, her senses painfully aware that they weren’t at home. They were in a strange place, where strangers could walk in at any point. “I’m…I’m still scared. If anyone were to find out about…about _this, _or—or if someone tried something to—”

“No,” James cut in, somehow sounding determined and resolute despite his hazy state. “I won’t let ‘em.”

Wanda didn’t doubt he genuinely believed that. Although, there was something deep within her that didn’t sit quite right with it.

“…OK,” she said after a while, trying to appease herself just as much as him. “You’re right. You’re right, we’re OK now.”

From his pinched expression, it was clear he wasn’t fooled by her tone. “Sweetheart—”

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, the sound cracking around her guilt. It had just occurred to her what was stirring uneasily in the pit of her gut. It was a deep, shameful part of her. A part that didn’t know if he would be enough. She knew, of course, that he would certainly try everything in his power to keep her safe for as long as he loved her. And from how much he already seemed to care about their little one, he would give everything to keep them safe, too. But against the many enemies they had—that the whole team had—was that truly enough? After all, they were where they were right now because she and Pietro had been attacked mere hours after James had left them for his mission with Steve. So much had already happened mere hours after they had found out about the baby to begin with.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated uselessly, knowing that her sudden swell of emotion must be scaring James. She hated this, hated doubting his ability for anything. She was letting fear control her, just as he’d insisted they shouldn’t do. Mentally, she tried to convince herself that it was just because of where they currently were, that she was just shaken from her near abduction, and from seeing—and _feeling_—him get badly hurt so recently. That maybe when they were home, safe and reunited with the whole team, she would come to her senses and see that as long as they stayed together, they could get through anything. _Maybe_.

Her uncertainty bled into her voice, making her stammer over her next words. “I…I don’t know why I’m…I’m just—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” James insisted. “Just don’t go away again. Please, don’t leave me alone, sweetheart. _Please_…I’m so tired of being alone.”

If his words weren’t enough like a blade to her heart, the tremble in his voice was. She already knew one of his scars from Hydra was the fact that he’d endured everything he had there completely alone. But he’d always been rather guarded about expressing how much that loneliness hurt, even with her. This was that pain exposed raw by a nameless drug, stripped down to an almost primal fear of being felt again. She wished she could take it away (in a way, she supposed she _could _suppress it, at least, but she also wanted to keep her word on not using her powers on him).

“You’re not,” she swore. “You’re not alone, I promise. I’m here. _Ya tvoya._”

“But you didn’t…” His voice drifted, his eyelids fluttering shut for a few heartbeats. “What’d you want?”

_To save you,_ was her first thought, _from everything they put you through. To let you feel safe enough to rest now, without worry something more will happen_.

“Right now? Just to be home,” she told him instead, resuming her ministrations in his hair. “With you, and Pietro, and our friends.”

“Mmm,” he grumbled sleepily. “Me too. I wanna be home ‘n…see my ‘ma. If…if she an’ my sisters knew about this…they’d be pushin’ us ta’ have a whole litter. ‘Specially if you were gonna be the mother.”

Wanda didn’t think her heart could sink any lower. He had to be really out of it to not only be this open about his innermost feelings, but also how much he wanted the old life he’d had long ago, with his birth-family back in the 1940s. Back before the Avengers, before he was the Winter Soldier, before he was drafted in a world war. She thought briefly of that version of him she’d seen in her dream the night he left for his mission with Steve. She wondered how different that version of him would be from the James she knew.

However, she knew it ultimately didn’t matter. Who they were now meant they would never have that normalcy. She’d known since she joined the Avengers last year. And with whatever drug was flooding his system this strongly, she wasn’t sure he would even remember this conversation, much less his admittance that he wanted a mundane life just as much as she did.

Or at least, she’d used to want that. Back before she’d really known what she was capable of. Back before ‘no more monsters.’

She smoothed the backs of her fingers over his forehead again before pressing a light kiss to the skin there. “We’ll be back home soon enough,” she promised vaguely. “Just get some rest for now, OK?”

He was silent for a moment. Although, she knew he wasn’t asleep because he was still blinking blearily up at her. Then, with more energy than she thought he had in this state, he was shifting in his place. At first, it almost looked like he was trying to wriggle away from her touch. But once he managed to roll more onto his uninjured side despite the apparatus still keeping his prosthetic limb on that side propped up, she realized what he wanted. He even uttered a wordless sound of invitation.

In spite of herself, the witch grinned in affection for him. What James was offering probably went against some sort of medical protocol, but between his expression—more candid and hopeful than he usually allowed himself to be—and her own tiredness from the last couple of days (including a poor night of sleep last night without him) she found herself willing to overlook that.

It took some maneuvering, again because of his left arm being held up, but she managed to get herself up onto the bed with him. It was a narrow space, and she had to tuck her limbs in close to her body to save room, but they managed. James brought his free arm up to rest over her waist, and in her relief to feel him against her again, this time at ease and not bleeding near to death, it ironically felt like a weight was being taken off of her.

Since she couldn’t reach his head anymore, she ran her fingers in a soothing trail along his jaw, instead. “Go to sleep, honey,” she urged gently. “I’ll be right here.”

“M’kay,” he mumbled, sounding half-asleep already. She was nearly convinced he had finally succumbed to it until he added, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, James.”

“M’not…not sure if I…I deserve…”

He trailed off, and this time, she could tell from his steady breaths that he was now fully asleep. She knew what he’d wanted to say though, and replied to the unfinished thought anyway.

“No. You don’t deserve this. You deserve the _world._”

* * *

Wanda didn’t remember falling asleep. She remembered nuzzling into her soldier’s chest, trying to forget where they were, and imagine that they were home, instead. The next thing she knew, she was being awoken by an uncomfortable stirring in her stomach.

She recognized needing to be sick, but having barely anything in her system to lose. As more and more of her senses returned to her, she realized her arms were also starting to ache from how she’d tucked them in between herself and James to preserve room on the bed. She turned away from him just enough to give herself room to stretch out her arms, relieving some of that tension. As she did, a new sensation began to creep over her, this time in her head. It was the sensation of minds entering her telepathy’s ear, soft but gradually growing in volume.

Someone was coming.

Wanda sat up, accidentally rattling her side of the bed with the abruptness of it. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed that James wasn’t at all disturbed by the bed being jostled. Normally, he was much more hyper-vigilant, mostly due to his training to always be ready for the worst as the Winter Soldier. She wasn’t certain how much time had passed, but she intrinsically felt as though the sedative he’d been given should have worn off by now. Either because of his enhanced metabolism burning through it, or because of how much he’d slept it off so far. How strong was it, whatever they gave him?

Some of her concerns were assuaged when she started to scoot off of the bed, and he finally did perk up a little as her body heat left his side.

“Hmm? _Koldun’ya?_” he asked groggily.

“I’m here,” she whispered, taking hold of his flesh hand when he reached for her. “I’m still here. Although, I don’t think I’m supposed to be, and someone’s coming.”

James frowned unhappily at that, but didn’t argue.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter either way. Within the next few seconds, the door was brought open by a tall, lanky agent, with three or four other agents lingering behind them. Wanda was still half-sitting on the bed, with only one leg on the floor. However, the lead agent acted as though he didn’t notice her on the bed at all.

“Maximoff,” he barked, his voice deep and raspy. “We were tasked to give each of your team members a medical check-in. We’ve been assigned to escort you to the exam room for yours.”

“Oh…right,” Wanda replied awkwardly. She did recall the Contessa briefly mentioned something about having the medical team check on each of the rescued Avengers. But Wanda had originally dismissed it as more of a suggestion than a requirement; something said just to encourage Natasha to settle her agitated state long enough for her own wounds to be looked at.

Now, the witch found herself mentally scrambling for an excuse to get out of it. Normally, it would probably be because of her general distrust of doctors following what she’d faced with the ones from Hydra, in which case, she could’ve told herself that it was irrational to believe all medics were as malicious and uncaring as that. But now, after what had happened during her last medical examination, she had additional reservations about potentially letting more people—this time, complete _strangers_—inspecting her. Potentially even discovering that she was pregnant, the same way Hilda had.

“How long will it take?” she asked as a form of stalling.

The lead agent shrugged in apathy. “Not sure. We’re only the escort team.”

Wanda felt a tug on her hand, which was still being held in James’s loose grasp.

“You shoul’ let ‘em check, doll,” he whispered, his voice likely audible to only her. “Just…just ta’ make sure everythin’s really alright.”

It unsettled her how much he was still slurring his words. Although, she could almost convince herself it had more to do with the lingering touch of sleep rather than the sedative, for the words he did manage to get out sounded significantly more grounded. He at least sounded more like himself, pressing for the utmost assurance that she was OK (especially under circumstances where her scarlet had been behaving abnormally; even the slightest instance of that made him worried she had fallen sick again).

“Well…I suppose just a brief check-in won’t be too bad,” she said, speaking more to herself than him. After letting her hand slip from his in order to run it over his head a few more times, she added, “You’ll be OK here, yes?”

“Yeah. ‘M still pretty out’ve it. Don’t even feel the split in my side ‘nymore.”

At least he was aware enough to know he still wasn’t entirely coherent. And if he was still at least half-aware of his surroundings, and not too worried about their secret being found out from a basic check-in, then she supposed she didn’t need to be, either.

“Alright.” Wanda resisted the urge to kiss him goodbye out of respect for his usual resistance to expressing affection in mixed company. To him, it meant potentially exposing how deep the care between them ran in front of someone who might abuse that knowledge. For now, she settled for merely stroking his head a few more times, even though the tenderness in her touch was only _slightly_ less telling. “Get some more rest. I’ll be back soon.”

James listlessly watched her as she finally removed herself from the bed and slowly made her way to the small group that was waiting for her. Based on his lax expression, he would probably fall back to sleep once she left. Hopefully after that, he would have completely shed the sedative in his system, and would be more with it.

As Wanda drew nearer to her escort team, the tower of a man that had spoken retreated back into the hallway. He took the lead at the front of the patrol as it started moving further down the hall, barely waiting for Wanda to reach them before they did. Despite their apparent hurry, Wanda, herself, hesitated for a moment in the entryway of the door. Just for a brief moment to look over her shoulder, and check once more that James would be alright where he was, alone and disorientated for however long it would take for them to return to each other this time.


End file.
